Chapter 4: Where The Moon Glows

Miko:

“Maleki?” I murmured aloud.

“Yeah, what’s up?” He responded.

I had fallen asleep and slumped over on the bench in an uncomfortable position, so I grabbed the back of the bench with my left hand to pull myself back upright. I knew the forest would be dark with those dense treetops, but this was even darker than I could have imagined.

“I can’t even see in front of me. How is the driver able to see where he’s going?” I asked.

“Miko, what are you talking about? You said these are Moonglow pines; this forest is lit up more than any other.” My older brother seemed confused.

“What?...I…I don’t understand. I can’t see anything at all.” It wasn’t that the forest was dark. Everything is dark. I can’t even see my arms.

“I’m blind…This has never happened before.” I slammed my fists into the bench and clenched my skull with my hands to hide my eyes and fight the tears.

“I…. can’t even read anymore. What if this is permanent? Maleki, what if I won’t be able to read ever again? Is this permanent?” I said in a panic.

“Miko, calm down. We’ll figure this out. It always changes once you sleep. I’m sure this will follow the cycle.”

“Calm. Calm. Calm. Maleki, I can’t see. My eyes are everything. I don’t know how to live without my sight.” I was furious but didn’t know where else to direct my rage.

“Miko, breathe. This doesn’t accomplish anything!” Maleki was calm, but I still wasn’t.

“Breathe!” I yelled. “How long until my lungs fail? Or, or my heart, for that matter? What if this is just the beginning? What am I to do without sight? Crawl? To where? I would gladly lose taste, smell, and even touch, but not my eyes.” I blurted out.

He wasn’t responding, but I could feel his eyes. I could just sense their grip.

I grabbed him by the sides of his shirt that sat around his neck. “Are you going to read every page to me, brother?” I yelled in a crazed manner whilst tears festered at the base of my eyelids.

I slumped over as something swift and solid connected with me. My breath was taken from me as quickly as it was there with one swift punch to the sternum.

“I’m sorry, Miko, but you wouldn’t listen.” He said in a low tone. “If that’s what it takes, I will read to you when the sun rises and until it sets.”

I gasped for air. I was crouched over with one palm on the floor, attempting to recalibrate myself. “I deserved that, sorry….”

“I promise you. We will figure this out. I need you to focus and be calm for a little longer.” My brother said as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

I know. I knew it would get worse. I just wasn’t ready, I guess. “What do I do now? Wait?” I asked him.

Maleki lowered his chest, “Unfortunately…yes. Try and go back to sleep. Perhaps your body will swap the unusable part again.”

I thought about what he was saying. Your muscles relax when you fall asleep, so it’s possible that when entering the state of sleep, my body is unable to recover certain parts. Although, that doesn’t explain the cycle. I have never lost access to the same body part two days in a row. It has always switched from day to day.

“Why does it never repeat?” I asked him.

I could hear him shuffle his hand to his chin while he crossed his arms. “Hmmm…”

A few moments went by, and he still hadn’t responded.

“Don’t think too hard, or you might pass out genius,” I said aloud.

“What if. What if, well — why? Why do we sleep?” Maleki asked.

“Why do we sleep?” I responded.

“Yeah. What’s the purpose? Our bodies do it naturally, so what’s to gain?” He said.

“Well, it’s our body’s way of recovering and growing. Our muscles can grow and rest. As Grandpa says, ‘A weapon must be heated and then cooled to be tempered and sharpened.’” I added.

Maleki thought for a brief second. “Okay, so you go to sleep without function in your arms, for example, but when you wake up the next morning, it’s back. By entering back into the sleep state, your whole body relaxes, and your heartbeat slows. Exiting the state means you cannot reproduce the same state as the previous night. Yet, you still feel pain in those areas?”

I responded immediately, “Yes, but the same could be said about someone asleep. You could cut their arm, and they would feel the pain and wake up.”

“True, but you don’t regain control when you feel pain in the targeted area, so it doesn’t have the same conditions as sleep.”

“You’re implying there are two things occurring?”

“That could be the case. Or, it could just be worsening. I wonder if it’s possible to force a specific limb to sleep, like when you cross your legs or sit weird, and your leg starts feeling numb.”

“That happens regularly. I can’t move my legs, so they are usually in a weird position. I can feel that same numbness, but it’s never woken that area up.”

“All right, well….” My brother drifted off into thought.

I decided to stop engaging in the conversation after this. Maleki went back to incoherently mumbling questions to himself as if he was propping up questions and then immediately prodding them to see if they stayed whole.

We had been here before in different scenarios, trying to figure out our own ways of deciphering a problem that somehow a hundred people have been unable to figure out. It’s always the same at the end of the day. The cycle continues, and I am left to wonder, ‘What will I lose next?’

I tried to fall asleep as Maleki suggested, but my mind was racing, trying to anticipate which days I would be able to see and which I wouldn’t. Once those thoughts settled, I found myself listening to the dense forest we were traveling through.

The cart would vibrate and tumble as the wheels spun against the uneven ground and crunched against fallen leaves and limbs. Although light, the traffic through this forest still kept the road relatively clean from large branches or road bumps. Once those noises became more consistent and quieter, I started hearing animals swooping through the trees, and even the branches brushing against the winds near the top of the treetop.

This wasn’t anything new; it just found my ears easier. These were all noises I had heard before and could even hear with my eyes open, yet without them; they found my ears much quicker and vibrantly than ever before.

“I can’t imagine you were unable to hear our conversation,” I asked the driver.

“Hmph. Not my business.” He barked.

“You’re not even curious? You must overhear a lot of interesting stories, like an innkeeper.” I asked.

“Sure, but you don’t pay me to delve into your personal life. That costs extra!”

“You have no moral compass.”

“Lookey here, I got my own problems. I don’t need you brats adding on to em!”

“Who you calling a brat?”

“You. Brat.”

Maleki leaned forward and asked aloud. “Miko, did you just pick up a rock and throw it at him?”

“No…”

“Well, it was way off,” My brother snickered.

The driver turned around and mocked me. “See, only a brat would throw a rock.”

“When I get my sight back, I’m pelting you with a rock.”

“That’s assuming you have use of your arms, dear brother, but let’s settle down. We’ll be coming up on the spot where we’ll camp for the night, so we’ll need to set up when we get there. Save your energy for that.”

“At least one of you has some sense.” The carriage driver laughed to himself.

I threw another rock, but he dodged out of the way, and I heard it tumble away into the trees. I was closer this time, though!

---------------------------------------------

An hour arrived quickly. I had attempted to fall asleep again but struggled to let go of my thoughts. I was too focused on my situation and surroundings to even entertain the idea of rest.

I could hear a stream up ahead where we were likely going to be setting up camp. The cart rolled to a stop, and I could feel Maleki get up from his seat to look around us. He asked the driver if we were planning on setting up camp here for the night, and he gave a swift yes before heading away with the horses to the stream.

Maleki left the carriage and returned to retrieve our gear and pallets from the compartment we initially stored them in. He told me he would get us all set up and would retrieve me when he was done. Our campsite was ten to fifteen feet away based on the noise he was making carrying it over there and dragging it around.

I didn’t like not being able to see where he was or being able to look at my surroundings in general. I was used to inspecting everything so heavily. I wasn’t a tracker by any means, but I had a good eye for what most people would overlook. I needed to find a way to cope with this in the interim.

Eventually, Maleki finished setting everything up and climbed up the first step to ensure I didn’t fall while adjusting to my newfound blindness. I had almost forgotten that I had full capabilities of my body’s physical movements. Being able to move my arms and legs simultaneously without any awkwardness was unusual. I made it to the steps, down to the ground, and slowly stepped around until I got my bearings.

I followed Maleki’s voice as he walked backwards to the campsite.

“This is where we’re set up,” he said loudly.

I mentally noted the distance from the carriage and the direction we walked in.

He ran over to the carriage, packed the wagon back in since we didn’t need it, and said aloud, “The cart is east of the campsite, and the water is about one hundred and fifty steps north of here.”

“That works. I’ll walk around for a little while to get a feel for the terrain. Don’t wait on me.” I responded as I walked towards him.

“Okay, just go slowly. The creekbed looks a little rocky and uneven, so watch your step. I’ll get to work on a campfire.” He said as he brushed past me to the campsite.

I lurched forward slowly, each foot checking the ground around me before picking up speed. I started with my hands forward now, checking for trees, and moved at a walking pace. It would be unfortunate to run into a tree, but I wanted to get going a little faster, so I could normalize the feeling of this speed with my blindness. I felt a tree in front of me, barely caught myself, and slid down the sloped end closer to the ground. There wasn’t a rush, so I sat momentarily to kick myself into the right train of thought. I wouldn’t be getting used to this as fast as I wanted. Bringing my hands behind me and pushing up with my legs, I was back on my feet and ready to go again. I could hear the stream even better now and figured it was time to be more careful. I slowed my pace, extended my right hand out to the side to check for trees, and then placed my palm in my left hand forward in front of my chest to brace me against anything I run into.

My speed increased, and I could feel the terrain becoming rockier with fewer sticks and branches in my way. The smell of the water was strong to my left, so I switched course and walked with only the soles of my feet. After a few steps, I felt a cold sensation around my toes.

I had reached the water all on my own. It was just a stream, so there wasn’t much depth, but I cleaned off my face and arms. This was the first time in a long while that I could move around in the water and clean myself with my hands. I was rejoicing at the moment. A feat so simple, yet I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I sat in the water for a second and then laid out with my arms and legs extended.

The water soaked my back and clothes that were pressed against the rocky creekbed. It had been so long since I could move this freely. Enjoying this moment was all that was important to me right now.

An overwhelming sensation surrounded me. All my fears of the future left my body for just a moment. To fully regain my movement was what we had set out for on this journey in the first place. Yet, I would have never intentionally traded my eyesight for this. Sight is so deeply tied to my idea of what it is to be that I had never contemplated the concept of trading. To lose access to one thing I held precious so that I could regain another. What would be my decision if I was forced to choose between the two? To regain my full movement capabilities but lose my eyes, or to keep my eyes and lose all movement in my body. It feels like a huge loss either way. My sense of self is tied so closely to the combination of sight and movement. Touch, smell, and taste are irrelevant to my way of life. So long as I can perceive and act upon my surroundings, I can claim that I am living.

I let my head sink into the water until my face was entirely under the surface. The water filled my ears, and I could hear the stream pouring down the rocks at each level. The bubbling effect as the water fell onto water from a higher surface took the center of the sounds I was hearing, but underwater it sounded muffled and deeper.

After enjoying the coolness of the water and drying up on the rocks, I decided to head back to camp so that my brother could come to clean up while I tried my best to set up camp. I wasn’t sure what I could do with no vision of the area, but usually, offering is just as appreciated as doing when you’re in my predicament.

I knew I had to head West back to the camp, so I got back into position to slowly but without falling, hopefully, walk all the way there. Putting my right arm out to my side and my palm in front of me, I slightly crouched to make it easier if I did fall and started heading in the direction of the carriage. A tree was close, so I weaved around it and crunched on a fallen branch near my foot. After a minute of walking, the sound of wood burning populated my ear, so I turned in that direction.

I definitely looked silly walking around the woods like this. My feet began to crunch on leaves close enough to the camp to alert Maleki.

He was only twenty to thirty feet away from me before he yelled, “Over here, brother! The fires already started so that you can dry off.”

I hadn’t planned on fully submerging myself in the water with my clothes on, so I was still soaked. The crackling of the fire was close, so I inched forward towards it and found a stone on the ground to sit on while I warmed up.

I could hear Maleki walking over, so I asked aloud. “Thanks for the fire. So what’s on the menu?”

He let out a short chuckle. “Haha, for you, only the best. Dry rations and some berries I found!”

“Neat…” I mumbled while acting annoyed.

“You ought to enjoy this. Who knows, your tongue could be next! How are you going to feel when you can barely speak and can’t taste?”

I mimicked like I couldn’t use my tongue “Vruvver can you hep muh eut.” We both broke out laughing.

“Brother, I love you, but I really hope that you don’t speak that into existence because that would get annoying fast.” He said through a set of laughs while catching his breath.

“Let’s hope not. I think I would stay mute.”

“Also, why were you walking like that back there?”

“Like what?

I could hear him mimicking my stance, probably exaggeratedly. “You know I can’t see you, right?”

“Here, take this.” he said.

“This is a stick. What am I supposed to do with this?” I joked back.

“You know, you aren’t the first person to go blind. Just put this out in front of you, sweep it back and forth occasionally, and then walk toward the stick. You think people walk around like that everywhere?”

I scratched my head as I realized what he was saying. “Oh, I didn’t think about that, I guess….”

“Take this too.” He handed me a medal device that seemed familiar. The other side was glass; although I couldn’t see what was inside, I could feel its movement. The device was a compass which would be helpful if I knew which way the arrow was pointing.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked whilst holding it lamely out in the palm of my hand with a plain face.

Maleki laughed. “I’m not dumb. Check the bottom of the medal side.”

I felt along the bottom edge, and a small notch had been engraved in the shape of an ‘N.’ I traced my finger down to the opposite side, and there was an ‘S.’ Further up the sides was an ‘E.’ and across from that, a ‘W.’

It wasn’t perfect, but if I moved the compass from side to side to trace the motion of the object inside the device, I could tell which side it was roughly facing.

“This works. Thank you…” It was a great idea, really. He must have taken it from Grandpa’s old bag while I was walking around.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I just don’t want you to keep asking me for directions.” He turned to the fire and started prodding it to keep it burning.