Blind

I am watching my life pass before me from behind an opaque screen, my eyes straining in vain to see something they cannot.

Once in a great while, once a year or so, I sleep the sleep of the dead. A whole day when I can do nothing but sleep. Oh, I try to make it through wakefulness when this happens, but after an hour or two awake — even after coffee — all I can do is collapse again, gratefully, on my bed. Comatose.

And I begin dreaming.

No, not dreaming, exactly. More like falling into a world that I cannot escape. In this state I find myself dreaming that I am sleeping and want to awaken. I try and try to open my eyes but cannot. They are glued fast shut. I call out for help again and again but there is no sound. I am seemingly forever doomed to my endless dream.

That is what I am living now. Sleeping, yet knowing that an awakened state is so close yet seemingly unattainable, if only I could open my eyes.

The days pass, growing longer as we approach the Solstice. Then they will shorten again. Meanwhile I will be crying out soundlessly, trying to open sightless eyes, feeling the world move past me.