The Blind

The label read, TAKE ONE A DAY. Few still questioned what the pill was. Their faiths had been satisfied by the absence of a third arm, which had yet to reveal itself in the many years that they’d been taking their pill.

Madison O’Cull was a diligent woman. She’d never forgotten to comply with this sacred instruction, though someday, she knew that age would prove otherwise. This failed to bother her. She would live until she died and refused to let the latter hinder her bliss.

Madison prided herself a resilient woman. The death of her husband had rattled her but hardly came close to breaking her will. The disappearance of her son after the last Territorial War did little more than unnerve her. The heavy wage cuts that came with the former population crisis had been little more than a nuisance.

This steadfastness, which kept her intact through seventy-or-so years of trouble, was now the last thing that kept her from screaming.

She had always been alone. She made no effort to establish new relationships, nor did she persist with her former ones. The company of someone else seemed foreign to her, almost uncomfortable, let alone the several uninvited guests that were now in her room.

Though her instincts spoke of danger, the people made no move against her. They were just there, some slumped over the bed, others milling by the lamplight. Madison saw a thin boy curled upon the couch and remembered that, only several hours ago, she had also been there finishing a Shirley Jackson novel. No acknowledgement was given to her for borrowing her couch. For that matter, no acknowledgement was given to anybody else, either. It was as if they were each trapped in their own worlds.

Madison thought what any sane person would’ve first thought: the apartment was haunted. She was among spirits, or was always among spirits, but had only realized now. As this theory nestled itself in her mind, she found curiosity override her fear. She nudged a young girl upon the bed, felt flesh touch flesh, and saw the girl’s eyes shoot awake. They were looking at each other now; only, the girl didn’t seem to look at her either, so much as looking through her. The eyes were distant and uneasy. Her head swiveled in apprehension, seeking who’d awoken her.

Finding this behavior somewhat un-spirit-like, Madison changed her course of thoughts. She wasn’t among spirits, but rather, a spirit among the living, having died in her sleep. That would explain for the other’s inability to perceive her and their surprise at brushing with a presence unseen.

She nodded to herself. It made perfect sense, if one didn’t account for why so many people were stuffed in a small room to begin with, or why they paid no heed to each other.

Feeling lightheaded, Madison settled herself upon the floor, causing others to turn her way as the wood gave a prolonged creak. In her mind, supposition chased fact and fact chased supposition in a dizzying spiral; the possibility of the supernatural came just as unfavorable as the lack of explanation otherwise. She took a deep breath, but the lightheadedness persisted. The stars in her eyes were multiplying now – they brightened, pulsed, flickered faster–

Then her senses were momentarily overshadowed by a singular voice, low and strained. Madison found herself looking through the lenses of – the lenses of what? – a veil of water, which distorted her senses and made her head swim. Two malnourished people were in her field of view, both donned in coats and gloves and hunched over a microscope. The strained voice, the voice of the taller one, said, “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I,” the shorter one agreed. She looked around, then added with some haste, “But it’s what they want of us. We should do it.”

The tall one grunted. “With the same amount of time, we could’ve found another solution to the population. We could’ve found a fix to the food shortage or designed a way to increase resource production. We could’ve even figured out how to colonize Mars at this rate.”

“But this is what they want.” Even as the shorter one said it, she sounded unsure. “The sooner we’re finished, the better.”

The taller one grumbled. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

The two headed to another corner of the lab, where three patients were asleep on separate cots. There was a vial beside each.

The taller one drew a harsh breath. The shorter one seemed unbalanced.

“The sooner, the better,” she said again, and injected the vials.

A moment later, the patients were awake.

They bore a dazed look which Madison accounted to fatigue, but some part of her knew that fatigue was only the surface of what she was seeing. They each stood from their cots and came near the researchers, seemingly unaware of their companions. Even stranger, though, was the way their movements seemed so unnaturally rigid, as if she were watching a choreography that was sloppily arranged. They drew near in a diagonal path, until Madison was sure they would collide, but at the last moment, snapped parallel to each other without any indication of intent a second earlier.

The person on the left reached the researchers first and shook their hands. The one behind tripped, though seeming perfectly balanced a moment before, and came back to his feet only when the first was dismissed. The third suddenly faltered, seemed confused, and continued as the other two finished.

When all three of them left the lab, the researchers shared a smile that held no joy.

“It works,” the smaller one said. “What do we do now? Do we write to the governors?”

The taller one shook his head. “We need more trials. The chip might’ve gotten lucky this time, but even a tiny error in the neural signals could turn the person’s brain into a chicken.”

“We could write to them in advance.”

“Why do that? If they asked for it, they better have the patience to wait.” He crossed his arms. “What was the reason for this experiment, again?”

The smaller one explained, scholarly and without any enthusiasm, “Overpopulation is just as much a psychological issue as it is physical. They thought that if they could adjust the human brain to omit certain senses, such as the presence of others and their actions, then people would be satisfied. They wouldn’t know that a dozen others lived in their room, and they would be under the illusion that they were blissfully alone. Think of all the resources that would be conserved if we could just fit a hundred people into a small space without complaint.”

The taller one grunted, agreeing to the means but refusing to acknowledge the end.

“We’re doing the world a favor,” the shorter one continued. “If we didn’t put the world into the illusion of bliss, they’d be drowning under the misery of reality.”

She continued to talk, but the voice was melting away. Madison saw whiteness creep back into her vision, and during those few moments where her consciousness swam through a nexus, she thought about what she’d heard. What she now knew.

She remembered that she hadn’t taken her medication.

And as Madison O’Cull returned to the dark, suddenly stuffy room that was no longer hers, she began to scream.