temporarily_out_of_focus epitome of incomprehensibility things_you_wrote_when_you_were_young (17 and 18) Two files with this name, the first an unfinished piece about the interior life of a blind teenager living in a sort of mansion for reasons I forget, the second about a younger girl who gets glasses. ADHDish in retrospect? "Focus" was not literal always, but anyway, the first: ... It was the day of the party. It was... was it? Why a party anyway? The bus was blue, bright blue and wavering with water and light shining. I was going somewhere... blink and it will go away with the sea, the sandy swift illusion of sound. The noise, sifting through fingers... it was the warm air escaping from the vent. The furnace was on; it was cold. I became aware of my surroundings... I was nodding off just a second ago and when I’m tired I feel strangely plural... different voices times sounds places sights, lots of sights especially. When I dream I am temporarily out focus; when I am awake I see nothing at all. Time to return to sleep, the all-too-necessary brightness of unreality. Do I dream in colours? Yes, millions and millions of them. Do I want to? Not really. If it were only not so, only not... Very good. I am thinking in words. As mediums of suggestion, they are easier to deal with than pictures: you form and shape them—no! Stop it, please. I do not want to think about shapes... strangely plural, she said... millions and millions of them. I had almost convinced myself, through vague tired philosophical musings, that words and images were the same. Then I roused myself to get out of bed and look at the time; with an all-too-familiar shock I realized this was impossible and I felt the hands on the clock: 11:55. The party was tomorrow. Words, words, and words... my dress was hanging on the door. Anna had informed me it was very pretty. It was a present and probably quite expensive. I myself do not spend that much money on clothes. What is the use? Anna is the maid. It seems weird to have a maid, and I don’t really think of her as that. Servants. How medieval. The princess will have to get her beauty sleep for the ball tomorrow. What utter joy. I tiptoed downstairs, clothes in hand. It was early and I wanted to avoid the usual crowd—but no such luck. I was walking down the stairs when I crashed into George. He mumbled an apology, although it was I who’d just bumped into him. I was embarrassed being seen in a nightgown—just because I don’t see other people doesn’t mean they can’t see me—and I hurried away, to the washroom which contains a basket full of assorted combs and brushes. There’s a sort of round one that I use to make my hair wavier. I can feel when my hair is nice and neat and healthy; it is very satisfying. I might be very vain if...stop it...never mind. You see. George is no relation to me; he is my uncle’s friend who is rather poor and is staying here while he goes to university. (There are lots of random people in this house—it’s quite weird.) When he came here last year, I formulated an entire story revolving around his evil plan to take over the world. It was fun while it lasted, but I AM sixteen now. Six years of darkness, and ten light years... ha ha ha. A point so distant I cannot see it clearly. I wish it would return. George, by the way, is studying languages. Vraiment? Sì, sì. I think. 220626 ... e_o_i That was supposed to come out "si" with an accent, Spanish for yes. But anyway, the second story: ... 1) The rain smashed against the car, blurring everything outside. Lucia watched it dot up the windshield, trying to estimate how many drops splattered onto the glass before the wipers smeared them away. Twenty this time? It was hard to tell. They kept appearing in different places. Fran, Lucia’s mother, looked out the window, counting the number of seconds between her and the car ahead. It was not raining enough to seriously worry her; visibility was hardly impaired, as they say, but it was always good to be careful. They passed the restaurant where a broken yellow sign advertised FR ED CHICKEN. Poor Fred, she thought, smiling. Lucia thought the sign said FEED CHILDREN. Certainly it was a good idea—she was still a child and it was almost suppertime—but her mom drove on. Accelerated, even. The streetlights blurred past. She tried to focus on them one at a time, but they didn’t look right: each light was spread out like a deformed snowflake. They used to be smaller, she was quite sure. Maybe it was the rain. The rain on the windshield was distorting things. Even the highway signs were fuzzy. How could her mother see them? “It’s weird, isn’t it?” “Hm?” A sharp little noise. Fran had seen Lucia frowning and squinting out of the corner of her eye, and weird was on the tip of her own tongue. Was something wrong at school? Was her daughter unhappy? “What?” “That you can’t see signs and stuff as clear when it’s dark.” “It’s not that dark.” “And raining.” She looked away. “You know when they have those stickers saying ‘Out of service’ on the vending machines at school? They should put a sticker on the highway signs saying ‘Temporarily out of focus’, what do you think? But of course you couldn’t really read the stickers either! Wouldn’t that be funny?” “Yes, quite. But the vending machines… didn’t they take them away last year?” “I guess. I don’t really care.” She sighed a little and pressed her nose to the pane. “Tempowawily outa focuth,” she mumbled. “Woosha need pay moh attenshun, datz all.” “What did I say about baby talk?” “‘A symptom of solipsistic tendencies’ or something? Tholipthistic. Bleh.” Her head slid down until it slumped against the door handle. That afternoon Lucia had puffed and panted as Madame Cadieux instructed everyone in the gymnastics class to lie on their stomachs, arch their heads backward and their feet upward to make their heads touch their feet. It was impossible. It couldn’t be done. Well, Nigel and Stacey could do it but Lucia could not. Exertion and frustration reddened her face. Mme. Cadieux, hands behind back, was walking slowly through the line of contorted bodies. Lucia looked at her and complained, “I can’t do it.” But the woman smiled. “It doesn’t matter, Lucia. What matters is that you stretch. We are developing flexibility.” She paused. “Good work!” she shouted at everybody. “Now let’s see some sit-ups!” A few people groaned but Lucia was relieved. After sit-ups there would be aerobics, and that meant jumping around in time to music. 2) Today’s first song was from the movie Pocahontas, the one about singing with the voices of the mountain and painting with the colours of the wind. Lucia liked the song—it was bouncy enough but still soothing. The last time it had been played Lucia got the thing stuck in her head, and was singing it to her mother in the car. Her mom asked her to repeat the chorus, and then said something about synesthesia, which meant mixing up senses. “Yes, like when we say a colour is loud. Colours of the wind, hmmm. Or maybe they’re just trying to be poetic in a clumsy Disney way.” Lucia lunged forwards and back, following the energetic but controlled motions of her teacher. She could relax now, and practice her own type of flexibility. She happened to possess good control of her eye muscles. Optical illusions were easy, especially those 3-D ones with a picture hidden in some pattern—she simply re-focused her eyes and the picture appeared. Easy to do but hard, as she often thought, to explain. After mastering puzzles, she tried her skills on the real world. She put two dimes in front of her on the table and blended them into one. She put her hand in front of her face, looked at something farther away, and saw two ghostly hands floating in the foreground. The tiling on the kitchen floor held a special fascination for her—so much that her mother worried. Why in the world was that girl standing staring at the floor, crossing her eyes every few seconds? Not normal behaviour at all. Mme. Cadieux, bobbing up and down, didn’t notice as her head split in two. Four brown spectacled eyes, two stubby noses and four pink lips bounced and wobbled and bounced. Then the picture snapped back together. It was hard to concentrate while doing jumping jacks. Anyway, her outline had grown vague lately, what with the poor lighting in the room. It was strange how static gathered into dark corners. Synesthesia? The CD couldn’t get through “Under the Sea” without sputtering, either. Lucia didn’t like opening her eyes underwater. That’s why she’d taken after-school gym instead of swimming lessons. It lasted longer, though—the clock, if she looked hard, registered five minutes to five. She yawned. Almost time to go. 3) That night Lucia had bad dreams. She was putting her gymnastics clothes in her bag but they kept changing forms. Her leotards turned into shorts and her headband went from yellow to blue to black. At last she gave up and saw a bright pink name tag with a string to attach around her neck. She tried to pick it up but it wriggled, catlike, out of her fingers and disappeared. She searched through mountains of dust. When she found it, it read “Look”. And then she could see nothing. She gasped and struggled through layers and layers of dark. Opening her eyes, like swimmer opens his mouth after breaking into air, she saw the room was still. Her lamp was to the right of her bed; on the left, her dresser was piled with books, unreadable without it. She reached for the switch, but paused. A line of light was visible on the wall. Tracing its source to the window, she yanked up the blind. Something was wrong again. Out of the neighbour’s unused chimney peeked a bright, pulsating globe. She drew back abruptly. Dreams invading life. No, no, be rational, it was a balloon. A glowing balloon? Maybe it was a bomb—but bombs didn’t light up, they just explode. Her heart pounded but she forced herself to look again, squinting. And of course. The round thing was not coming out of her neighbour’s chimney at all. It was very far away from it, in fact. Lucia looked at the moon, sighed, and closed the blind. She knew what was wrong. 4) Light: a profusion, an infusion of it. Fixtures were everywhere: large wide rectangles on the store’s ceiling, glowing; carefully concealed lights behind the racks of glasses; lights above the mirrors so Lucia could see every pore on her face as she peered in, trying on jewel-edged designer spectacles for the sheer joy of it. Fran tapped her fingers on the sales counter, waiting. Her daughter had been frightened (her, at eleven years old!) of the optometrist’s equipment—admittedly, it was rather odd having bulky machines with different lenses forced in front of one’s vision—but now, with the glasses all ready, she was excited and giggly. The salesman came back, bearing the precious focus-restorers. “Would you like a case with that?” Lucia, bounding forwards, replied, “Yes, please. The blue one,” before her mother could respond. “You should try them on first. See if they fit.” Lucia saw that there was a sale on clothes at the other end of the store. Tags everywhere. The numbers were fine, precise and clear. Jeans were $16.99, Men’s Sweaters were $29.99, Microfiber Sport Suits were $46.50! Fran was not as perceptive this time; she only noticed the price of the glasses plus case. Leaving the shop, Lucia was euphoric. Outside the sun bounced off of the mall’s many windows. There was no rain, no lights spread out like snowflakes either. Everything was sharp and new. Now she should not be afraid of the dark. 220626 ... e_o_i nooo the numbering is wrong, the 2nd scene starts earlier. Anyway, it's late and I should attempt sleep. 220626 what's it to you? who go blather from