Originally Published in Jest Magazine
Dear Editor: I am writing this letter to alert your readership of a very real and disconcerting conspiracy, taking place right under our very noses. I recently became aware of this sinister plot when I responded to an ad for a free financial seminar. The one-time class was being held after hours at a middle school in the East Village. I now know that I had misread the room number on the advertisement because the room I stepped into was holding a meeting of an entirely different sort. I was late, so I entered quietly, trying not to disrupt the seminar that I believed was already in progress. I was so quiet that no one seemed to notice that I had entered the room. Nobody even looked at me. Then I realized why. There was something strange about the way these people moved about the room. Many wore dark sunglasses despite the classroom’s ample lighting. It wasn’t until I saw their leader studying a bundle of papers that I realized what I had walked into. The man wasn’t looking at the papers. He was running his hand down the pages. I had unintentionally interrupted a meeting of the National Association for the Blind. I was about to step out of the room when the leader said, “All those with sight must be eliminated.” With this statement the leader had drawn the group’s complete attention and the room had become deathly quiet. There was no way that I could now leave without being heard. The creak of the door or the tap of my footsteps would have undoubtedly given me away. I stood there frozen. The once bustling group of men and women were now seated in an orderly schoolhouse fashion, facing the main speaker at the front of the room. The leader continued, “That is why we are all here today. Those with vision have done nothing, but hinder our progress and threaten our way of life. Because of this, they must be stopped. Unfortunately, we now know that merely stopping, even usurping them and removing them from their positions of power will not be enough. We must be willing to step into the abyss beyond morality, beyond right and wrong and with a clear conscious eradicate every last sighty from the planet.” The small crowd remained attentive and silent. The only thing that could be heard from the audience was the sniffling of a single man on the edge of the group. He was seated at the desk closest to me. “Excuse me sir,” the sniffling man said hesitantly. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think I smell something. I think I smell someone, someone that doesn’t belong here.” With that the others in the room began to sniff the air. The speaker shouted, “Quickly the door.” The man sitting nearest to me who had sniffed me out leapt from his chair and lunged forward. With an assuredness belying his handicap he thrust his arm forward and slammed the door shut. My exit had now been effectively cut off. I silently stepped backwards, away from the man now guarding the door. I thought my slow and carefully placed footsteps were completely inaudible, but I soon learned that was not the case. Someone from behind me shouted, “He’s close by!” The group rose from their chairs and moved about the room with an uncanny, almost intuitive sense of their surroundings. I crouched into the corner of the room and futilely tried to press myself deeper into the concrete walls. That’s when one of the women in the group spoke. “We know you’re here color lover. We can hear your heart beating.” She was cut off by the sound of steel ringing against its sheath. One of the group had pulled the top off his red-tipped cane to reveal a saber. It turns out their canes are entirely unnecessary for guidance or orientation purposes. They are used only to conceal large cutting and stabbing instruments. The man standing by the door said, “What do you say we level the playing field?” and then hit the light switch. Darkness swallowed the classroom. It proved to have both a psychological and physical effect upon me. As reluctant as I am to admit this it would be dishonest to say that I remained courageous and steadfast throughout this entire ordeal. When the lights went out my usually voluntary functions became involuntary. That is to say, the fear took hold of my bowels. No single act, other than shouting out my exact location, could have sealed my fate more effectively. The almost canine nostrils of these sightless supermen were immediately filled with the stench of my own filth. At first this acted as a type of offensive attack temporarily keeping them at bay. I might have been able to use this to my advantage had my wits been more about me. Imagine setting off a flash grenade in a room full of “Mole People” and you can begin to grasp the effect that my own bodily contents had upon these supernaturally handicapable individuals. Unfortunately, I had been paralyzed by fear and unable to take advantage of this short window of opportunity. The sightless, bladewielding bastards were closing in on me and all I could do was whimper. They were so heartless they actually laughed, mocking my final moments. Just then, a heartbeat before a blade was brought down the center of my scalp, the door opened and the light came on. A bewildered janitor stood there with mop and bucket, a look of confusion pasted across his pale, unshaven face. My would-be assassins were momentarily startled and I awoke from my frightened trance. I leapt up and ran for the door. I had almost reached the exit unmolested when the man by the light switch reached out his hand and grabbed my face. Determined to escape, I shook free of his grasp, jumped over the custodian’s large, yellow bucket and bolted down the hallway. As I ran I could hear the leader explaining the scene to the janitor. He told him that they were just performing a bit of psychodrama for therapeutic purposes and that there was nothing to be alarmed about. Without looking back I ran down the stairwell and out the side door of the school. I didn’t stop running until I had reached the subway. I wish I could say that the story ended there. I thought that I had escaped that day and left no trace of my identity behind. Unfortunately, that was not the case. A few days after this nightmarish experience I began to notice people following me home from the subway. This would not have caught my attention if these individuals had not been wearing sunglasses at 9 o’clock at night! I’ve also started to hear barking outside my apartment window. The barking sounds different than my neighbor’s Rottweilers, almost too intelligent to be the bark of a normal dog. I’m convinced it’s the bark of a seeing-eye dog. I then realized that the man at the light switch had not merely grabbed my face. He must have photographed it. I’m convinced the blind have a tactile database that makes the FBI’s feeble information network look like a family photo album. No doubt they knew my identity within hours. Now that they’ve found me, this letter of alert to the greater public may also turn out to be my final notice to the world. I have drawn my blinds and increased my Paxil prescription to 200 milligrams. I now await the inevitable. I hope that the rest of the world may fare better, but sadly I don’t see how any of us stand a chance against a foe so cunning and insidious. For how can we kill that which cannot be seen. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. How can we kill that which cannot see us. That’s better. Wait, no it’s not. Anyway, we’re all doomed, just take my word for it. Head for the hills or Canada or something. Trust me on this one. Sincerely, Jonathan Wagner |