Free Shooting in the Dark by John Baker Page A

Angeles Falco functioned in the world as well as many sighted people and in some areas better than most.
    She was not a helpless stereotype, stumbling around in a black cellar with her arms outstretched. She was an independent, rounded character, someone who embraced the world and responded individually to whatever stimuli it put in her path. She would be a real-life model for JD’s fictional hero.
    And the fact that she was in trouble, that she was being watched by some hidden presence, well... JD smiled. That was the lot of all fictional characters. As soon as a writer created a character and put him or her into a book, the character became the focus for the reader of the book. The character’s every move was seen and noted. The inflexions of speech, the inner thoughts, the dreams, fears, aspirations. The being of the character, existentially, the fact, the survival of the character was dependent on him or her being continually observed. Being watched.
    Without a constant flow of readers, the fictional character was, in reality, trapped inside the covers of a book. And perhaps that was the reason why the best fictional characters tried to take on a life of their own, tried to charm, to captivate the reader. They wanted to insert themselves into the consciousness of the reader, so that he would carry them off inside his head when he came to the last sentence and closed the book. Then the fictional character would go on living, vicariously, it is true. But there are many among us who live by proxy, through another’s joy or sorrow, and yet still experience their lives as real, valid.
    JD did a word count, saved his work and shut down the computer. Time to go back to reality, watching the blind woman, try to keep her safe from whoever it was killed her sister. He pulled on his coat and closed the door behind him. Ten words. It was a start, a beginning. He’d have to expand on it a little. Couldn’t really claim it was a novel yet.
     

11
     
    When Echo was born Geordie couldn’t imagine what she saw when she gazed at him. Celia had quoted William James’ ‘blooming, buzzing confusion’, but Geordie hadn’t wanted to believe that his daughter didn’t hold him in some kind of focus. She imitated him, didn’t she? Mimicked his facial expressions. But more than that, it seemed to Geordie that the transactions that took place between Echo and himself were rich in emotion and understanding.
    JD reckoned that babies were almost blind. That they negotiated with the world by means of touch and hearing and their vocal cords, but that they didn’t actually see very much. Not until they were around two months old. He’d read a book about it.
    ‘Why is it,’ Janet asked, ‘that people like Celia and JD, who’ve never had babies themselves, are always the ones who know everything about them? Echo sees me just as clearly as I see her and she has done since the moment she was born.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Geordie agreed. ‘It’s because they’re intellectuals.’
    Janet held Echo close to her body. ‘Silly people,’ she said to the child, using her own version of mother-talk. ‘She’s got beautiful eyes.’
    ‘You know what’s beautiful to me?’ Geordie asked rhetorically. ‘Things that’re mysterious. Everything that’s mysterious.’
    ‘Echo’s the most beautiful thing in the whole world,’ Janet said, but she wasn’t answering Geordie so much as talking to her child.
    ‘Yeah,’ Geordie said. ‘You and her are the most beautiful things in the world. But that’s because you’re mysterious.’
    ‘There’s nothing mysterious about us,’ Janet told him. ‘We’re living in the world like everybody else, trying to get by, doing the best we can.’
    Venus and Orchid, Janet’s two cats, slunk into the sitting room. They’d been hanging round the koi pond at number thirty-eight, but they didn’t appear to have had much luck. Venus was heavily pregnant, her stomach almost grazing the floor as she