Come Toward the Sound of My Hands
Tatsumi Konnou remembered the day he lost his sight clearly. Since he wasn’t that young when he lost his sight, and it was a day that changed his life, no matter how much he thought he could try to forget, it wasn’t something he could forget. Tatsumi’s eyesight had always been poor to begin with. He couldn’t see much without his gla.s.ses, and had severe night blindness ever since he was a child. It was gradual, but his vision that faded day by day made him nothing but terrified he would wake up one morning blind. Not knowing what to do if that happened, he would cry into his pillow every night. He lost his ability to see when he was fourteen years old. Whenever he mentioned his age when it happened, people would tell him, ooh, so you could see until you were older. However, it varied for each individual, so according to the people who had the same condition as him, who mostly lost their sight in a few decades, Tatsumi’s progression was fast. Even when he could see, his vision was declining rapidly, so gla.s.ses and contacts barely worked. He immediately started to use a white cane, learned braille, and how to use text-to-voice software during that time.
It was cloudy that fateful day. Since it was a cloudy, rainy day, he couldn’t see that well without the light on even though it was day time, but when he asked his little sister to turn on the light, she answered back, the weather is really nice today. It wasn’t cloudy that day at all.