• An Original Short Story By Justine James; Copyright March 2010

    ~Running With Safety Scissors~

    My name is Abigale Crippen, aged 20, and currently living in the Middle of Nowhere, Washington. There is not a thing special about me and nor will there ever be anything special about me. I gain no news credit, special gain, or anything that would be of value to a normal person by me living in a forest, but its self-satisfying to wake up in the morning when I choose to, to the sound of nature taking place. The feel of the sun on my face is blissful, and its nice to know that I am still alive. I will never know what the sun looks like, nor have I ever known what it looks like, but its nothing that will ever bother me. My outlook on being sightless, not blind, is that I have gained something better; more senses to better know the world around me. I will always use my senses to 'feel' my surroundings, but sometimes I am glad that I can't see because it would show me how truly terrible this world is.

    Each morning I wake up on my own without the aid of an alarm clock, and turn my feet and legs over the edge of the bed. After setting them onto the soft carpet of my cabin, I walk them to the kitchen without shuffling like a child. I stand in front of the kitchen sink where the window is facing East, and wait until I can feel the light warmth of the sun. When I was living in the city with my adoptive father, I had a good friend who asked me what it was like to be blind. I at first didn't know how to answer being only 7 and not mature enough to know what the difference was.

    "Well, I don't know." I had said. But he wasn't going to settle for that answer.

    "Come on Abbey! What do you see? Is it black, or is it just nothing?" He said in his usual whiny voice.

    "I see...Well, it is black, but I also see tiny things...Like squares, and circles."


    I never thought that he was going to ask something like that. I had known nothing outside of the darkness, and life seemed to be okay this way. I hadn't thought about what seeing would be like, but I imagine its like losing your other senses. I would be lost without my super hearing and sense of touch. I've learned so much that I would simply be lost without.

    As the sun came up, and I felt it on my face, I smiled and turned on the water to run myself a pot of tea. Once the kettle had began to squeal its harmonious tune, I started to brew some apple and cinnamon. Soon my entire cabin smelled of something close to apple cider. Someone once told me that you never truly know yourself until you're alone with yourself. I took this advice to heart and packed up one suitcase to live out in the middle of nowhere, but I think of this as a journey to learn myself.

    Now, you may take offense to this life and say this is unnatural, but its that same attitude that makes us humans so dependent on what we have. If you ever take life one step at a time, you'll begin to understand that there is more to life than waking up, going to work, and repeating. Life is a journey, not a destination.