I went to a blind restaurant for dinner. No, wait, that’s not what I mean; the restaurant wasn’t blind. Rather, I went to a restaurant where all the waiters were blind, and the dining room was in the dark. I mean a pitch black kind of dark – this wasn’t the kind of bedtime darkness that your eyes adjust to or anything, it was a thick kind of Bible-black pre-dawn where I gaped for light like a fish for air until I realized the freedom in this artificial, hyperbolic night. After realizing this, I lifted up my shirt.
“Jan, I lifted up my shirt. I don’t have a shirt on right now.”
“I know, that’s how I’ve been picturing you all along.”
“– oh,” I said, with a slight inflection at the end, like a question. “What colour do you think the table is? It feels like a chestnutty colour.”
“This one is, yes, definitely, but what about the one next to us?”
The people next to us were speaking French, everybody was speaking French but us, so we did not have to worry about being overheard, but did not get the enjoyment of easy over-listening. Besides, the monotonous buzz of conversation created a kind of impermeable fur over the room, muffling individual sounds. Because of this, I was able to raise my hand up and over what I imagined to be a tall fence of linked arms, hands holding other hand shapes on the table next to us, making a dramatic invisible show of feeling the neighbours’ table.
“This one feels chesnutty, too.”
“What do you mean? What feels chestnutty? What are you doing?”
“Shh,” I scrunched up my face, slowly walking my fingers along the table and onto the edge of the plate of the man sitting next to me: empty. “Damn, he’s finished already.”
“SHHHHHHHHHHHH!” stage-whispered a chubby woman with silvery blonde hair and lip-liner that was darker than her lipstick, which had worn off after her appetizer. The monotonous buzz had grown into a whirr, a growing swarm of wasps; we had forgotten the rule of quietness in order to maximize the sensory experience, seeing (pun!) as sound would be heightened with the loss of vision. The chubby blonde diner to my left, or so I imagined her, reminded everyone of this.
“God, What a bitch. Do you see her with blonde hair, too?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, never mind.”
“Jan, I lifted up my shirt. I don’t have a shirt on right now.”
“I know, that’s how I’ve been picturing you all along.”
“– oh,” I said, with a slight inflection at the end, like a question. “What colour do you think the table is? It feels like a chestnutty colour.”
“This one is, yes, definitely, but what about the one next to us?”
The people next to us were speaking French, everybody was speaking French but us, so we did not have to worry about being overheard, but did not get the enjoyment of easy over-listening. Besides, the monotonous buzz of conversation created a kind of impermeable fur over the room, muffling individual sounds. Because of this, I was able to raise my hand up and over what I imagined to be a tall fence of linked arms, hands holding other hand shapes on the table next to us, making a dramatic invisible show of feeling the neighbours’ table.
“This one feels chesnutty, too.”
“What do you mean? What feels chestnutty? What are you doing?”
“Shh,” I scrunched up my face, slowly walking my fingers along the table and onto the edge of the plate of the man sitting next to me: empty. “Damn, he’s finished already.”
“SHHHHHHHHHHHH!” stage-whispered a chubby woman with silvery blonde hair and lip-liner that was darker than her lipstick, which had worn off after her appetizer. The monotonous buzz had grown into a whirr, a growing swarm of wasps; we had forgotten the rule of quietness in order to maximize the sensory experience, seeing (pun!) as sound would be heightened with the loss of vision. The chubby blonde diner to my left, or so I imagined her, reminded everyone of this.
“God, What a bitch. Do you see her with blonde hair, too?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, never mind.”
I made lewd faces for a while and then our waiter, Charlotte, brought the second course of the “Carte Blanche” menu, the surprise option where the diner has no idea what food would be arriving on what one could only hope to be plates, as I can’t see it being very easy to eat soup or something without the privilege of vision. I ate with my hands, slowly feeling my way around the textures on the plate. Steak, peas, wafers of parmesan cheese, and some sort of mushy crispy thing that was similar in texture to that of roasted potatoes but not at all in taste.
“Fried pig’s heart!”
“I’m at that bit too!”
I had to keep reminding myself that that was the world that blind people live in every second of every single day. They won’t ever walk back out into the light.
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