Free Kalila by Rosemary Nixon Page B

with her finger, like a child after all these years. She can read at most an hour, then the page blurs. The doctors tell her macular degeneration is a mysterious disease. No one knows why an eye’s blood vessels break and leak. Lately she has trouble recognizing faces. She tells people mostly by their shapes these days, their walk, their smell, their voices. Their outline is a blur. I can’t make eye contact, she tells me over the phone. There are times I know I appear rude. I feel such shame.
    On her last visit, Dr. Nichols jovially told her that in mythology, blindness is linked to inner sight. Birds see better than humans. My mother reading up on sight as she loses her own. Pigeons, for instance, see polarized light that is absent to the human eye. These same birds can be trained to pick out letters of the alphabet, a skill my mom is losing. A spindrift of sunlight at the window. My book slips from my knee. How I long for my mother’s faith. Mine fell away somewhere. I listen to the prayer my mother will be praying. Our Kind Loving Heavenly Father, Ye who said your kingdom is likened unto a child, Ye who said to the nobleman, Go thy way, thy child liveth, Ye who said, Suffer the little children to come unto me. Ye who sees the sparrow fall, Attend to the suffering of little Kalila . I squint at a breath of sunlight shifting against the windowpane.

A sunny Tuesday morning. I find myself standing in the fresh produce aisle. Shoppers negotiate carts about me.
    Maggie Watson! I turn in the act of picking up a mango. Remember too late the touch of its skin blisters my own. Standing at the far end of the aisle is a woman I worked with at the seniors’ complex. Bernice stands large in her overcoat, open, revealing a fuchsia paisley dress. Her feet, stuck in serviceable white nursing shoes, squeak my way.
    So, Bernice says.
    Umm, Bernice says.
    I pick up three pomegranates, pack them in my cart. How’s life at Confederation Lodge?
    Things could be worse. Bernice pinches the kiwi. I moved to days. Remember Vivian? She worked in foods? She’s developed a tremor in her left hand. Mm-hmm.
    I set in my cart arugula, a bag of kale. Bernice goes for the romaine lettuce, leans close. Pear perfume. Who’d want to smell like fruit?
    Bernice says, May be cerebral palsy. Vivian, she adds to my blank look. Oh, Bernice says, and Madge Middleton finally died. She snaps her fingers. Went just like that at Tuesday Bingo. It was so distressing for the others. And Ruth Barker, the activity coordinator —was she there before? — well, she took Velma’s job — anyway, she didn’t notice Madge had passed on, and kept shouting, Under the B-52! Under the O-12! Madge passed on in her folding chair beside old Julian Bates, who got so agitated when he noticed her gone, he hollered, Bingo! And Nattie Schue slid all the buttons off her cards. Was there a to-do when Nattie found she was out of the game for nothing! When all the excitement died, and the paramedics left, they had to start the game over on account of Nattie Schue.
    I walk into morning light, pushing a cart of groceries I don’t need: mangoes, shrimp, Chinese cabbage, lemongrass, leeks, a clump of beets. As I pull onto Sarcee Trail, window rolled down, the Rocky Mountains, the whole Bow Valley corridor, bursts into view in all its granite snow-topped sunlit splendour.
    A chinook wind sings.
    The world is turning on its axis.
    Anything can happen.

Hand in your quiz. I trust it’s jolted you awake. Surprises are stimulating. Keep you on your toes. Harvey, you already wrote the thing. What’s the point of complaining now? Take out your notebooks. Fifteen minutes left. No. There’s no such thing in my class as free time. Chaos theory. With whom did it begin?
    Mutterings. Scramblings. A frantic search for pencils.
    Edward Lorenz, sir.
    Early morning light streams through the classroom windows. Dust hangs, pale and shifting, students’