"Strange things happen when we decide to choose what's strange on our usual."
-Serised
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"Excuse me, can I seat here? I can't clearly see at the back," a guy asks, pointing to the vacant seat beside Ken.
Ken replies an immediate nod to agree.
"Okay, Ms?" Mr. Jean prompts so the girl could give her name.
Ken turns his head back to the amber eyes girl.
"Ahh...it's Shiela, my name is Shiela, Sir." she replies, filling the awkward air.
"Shiela. Finally," Ken whispers, sitting unrelaxed trying to look at his left.
Ken shifts his seat on a more comfortable position, then open another blank canvas on his phone, calm outside but actually panicking inside. He takes a long look on Shiela to remember how she looks and carefully starts drawing her.
"Alright Ms. Shiela, let's hear what you wanted to share," Mr. Jean replies, putting down his mic.
Crowd's attention move to Shiela, looking all curious what she has to say.
Ken starts a rough sketch: heart-shaped face with a straight yet a bit of care-free hair strands that surpass her shoulders for an inch or two; well-toned neck and defined collarbone, wearing an offshoulders that shows them off.
"A person who is completely blind don't see black just like how others think," Shiela starts talking.
Ken snatch some glances back at Shiela and look closely on her facial features. Her expression seems calm but gives off a bit of a cold air.
"...rather, they see nothing," Shiela ends her sentence.
Shiela settles down on her seat, the people brought their attention back to the lecturer in front, except Ken. Ken's eyes freeze on Shiela, his left hand still gripping the stylus just above his canvas in the phone. Unknowingly, Ken's hand slides down, ruining his drawing.
"Ahh.." he says quietly.
Ken looks at his sketch, a slanted line formed from where he usually places the lower eyelid in his drawing, going southwest. An image starts forming on his head, right away he makes it to reality.
'A broken mask' Ken says to his head, completing his drawing. The broken mask left a space for the drawing's one eye to see.
"Thank you for pointing that out Ms. Shiela. If you notice, our friend here, mentioned 'completely blind' because blindness is also used to describe people who are visually impaired, and there have been differences on what they see..." the professor continues to expound what Shiela said.
"Wow, is that Shiela?" the guy beside Ken suddenly comments to his masked girl drawing, the stranger's eyes peeking below his lashes.
Ken was a bit startled but doesn't feel uneasy.
"Do you know her?" Ken asks since the guy sounds as if he knows Shiela.
"Nah," the guy says with one hand waving, brushing off the idea.
"She said her name earlier, hehe," the guy adds, flashing a bright smile, as if telling Ken it's common sense.
"I'm somehow familiar with her face though, since I might have met her on the way in and out of the university, but she seems not to stay in one place a lot, whenever I see her on the cafeteria, school library, school grounds, school hall, the time when classes are over, she's ALWAYS walking, as in ALWAYS on the way to somewhere. So I find her a bit odd," the guy says in a very dramatic tone.
'This guy is totally a talker' Ken's thoughts start to describe the stranger, but he's not rude enough to call him off, so he ends up staying silent.
Ken shifts his head in front trying to listen to the professor who keeps on explaining what blind people see.
"But I think she's pretty attractive," the guy randomly continues.
The guy's last statement enters Ken's line of thoughts, so he starts moving his head up and down.
"I think she's also--" a girl from their right breaks off the guy's noise by speaking to him calmly, stooping down to avoid disturbing anyone.
"Hey, Blake...tone down your voice," she says as quiet as possible.
"What?" Blake says in his normal speaking voice.
"I said quiet down," the girl whispers back suppressing her irritated tone.
"What? I can't hear you!" this time, Blake shouts in a really loud voice enough to get the attention of people in front, including Mr. Jean.
"Oops, sorry Sir!" Blake immediately says, realizing what he just did.
Ken wears a blank expression, looking in front, feeling uneasy for all the eyes directed near his seat. He glances towards his left where Shiela is and saw how she's not bothered, holding a pen and taking down some notes.
Blake apologetically bows his head on the lecturer and the people in front, looks back at the girl who warned him and shows a peace sign.
"As I was saying, it was reported that people who are born blind described what they see as 'nothing'. Try for example, do what I have to say so you all could understand," Mr. Jean continues speaking.
"Try to cover one of your eye with a hand," Mr. Jean instructs everyone.
People on their seats follow Mr. Jean, and put one hand to their one eye.
"Do you see the color black? Or just nothing?" the professor asks.
The crowd starts murmuring, saying that they don't see anything, or that they're amazed, laughing it out.
"Thank you for actively participating everyone, you can now all put down your hands," Mr. Jean appreciates everyone, moving his hand up and down.
Ken looks down on his drawing, the girl with a mask.
"Do you see nothing?" Ken mumbles, asking directly the girl on his canvas.
"In comparison, those who lost their vision later on varies in what they see. In the same study, some attest to see some light, some others say they see black but most of them are actually recalling their past vision and experiencing hallucinations because they once experience seeing colors or images in the first place," the professor adds.
"Sir," Shiela called on the professor again.
"Yes, Ms. Shiela? You want to add something?" Mr. Jean acknowledges Shiela with a pleasant look.
"May I, Sir?" Shiela asks tilting her head a bit.
"Yeah. Sure, sure," the professor happily agrees with small nods.
Shiela stands up from her seat and starts speaking, wearing an assertive expression.
"I just want to say that, seeing nothing might sound pitiful and hopeless. I can definitely agree that it's challenging to be completely blind, but those people live normal lives too, successful lives at that, so, we shouldn't look down to them,"
"The last thing they need is to see others feel sorry for their situation, they wanted to be treated normal, as they are," Shiela adds as if having a school speech.
Everyone had their attention caught by Shiela's message, showing their agreement in different ways: nodding, clapping, expressing it to their seatmates.
"She seems too invested on the topic," Blake voice out his observation with a nod in agreement to Sheila.
Ken feels the warmth inside his chest, hearing all the positive conversation beside him, and internalizing what Shiela has said. He looks back to his drawing to talk to it again.
"You see something others might not have been recognizing although had known,"
"Wow, I can't help myself from getting my eyes wet on this topic, this is really a sensitive spot," the professor took his handkerchief out from his pocket to wipe off his forming tears.
"It's just nice to hear it from students like you, 'cause just think about it, if people from our society have the same mindset, won't you agree that the community would be a better place for those who have an 'extra' challenge on themselves already? like for example, people who are blind," Mr. Jean adds after clearing his throat.
"That's been my very reason why I conduct a teaching series from different universities, so we could all be aware and be able to share to others how inclusion is important, and is a nice way to make a better place," the professor passionately utters.
"By the way, thank you Ms. Shiela for sharing your thoughts, this is what I like on this type of discussion, it inspires and uplifts me," Mr. Jean thoughtfully recognizes Shiela.
Shiela displays a genuine smile, a bigger smile than what Ken saw on their first meeting.
"I feel bad for calling her odd, she looks so sincere and even has nice perspectives in the topic," Blake regretfully begins to speak again.
"Come to think of it, she must have had a reason why she's always walking around when I see her," he adds.
"She's heroine-worthy," Ken says a short reply without looking to Blake.
"Yeah, I agree," Blake responds, two brows arching.
"Well, since we have something we agree on now, I'm Blake. How about you?" Blake says out of nowhere.
Meeting new people or making an acquaintance is out of Ken's plans, but Blake offers his fist to Ken.
In the end, Ken decides to hit it, weakly.
"Mine's Ken," he says not long after.
"Wow, nice name. I ran into it once in the internet when I was looking for my name's meaning, according to it, your name means 'handsome'," Blake starts another conversation.
'He sure never loses a word to say' Ken internally praises Blake's ability to talk too much.
"My name means 'black, bright and shining', it would have been too satisfying if it says 'handsome too though, haha but I'm not saying I'm not happy with my name's meaning, for sure my parents thought about it a lot," Blake continues blabbering.
The rest of the event was filled with Blake's side comments that made Ken's former quiet day amiss. For him, today's the first day for a long time that he had heard a lot of words in a day from one person, a stranger at that.