Blind Like Me
Updated on November 21, 2005, 10:06 PM - Written by Tim Buttner
For a day, competing with my daily and mediocre schedule, I chose to take on the task of being blind and discover the effects it had on my view of life. To accomplish such a task I asked my teachers if it was okay with them for me to conduct this experiment in and during their class. I chose a day where it did not require the use of a computer because that would be anti-productive of my plans. The teachers on that day agreed to the circumstances in which I could be blind and the experiment began.
To accomplish the simple feat of making myself blind, I took a pair of ski goggles and placed paper towels inside the lenses, checking to make sure that nothing peeked through except for light, counting in the fact that not all blind people see only blackness. I fixed the goggles over my eyes for a test run and it worked; I was unofficially blind. I decided that the next day I would also not where my contacts but instead my glasses. When I had the goggles on, I removed my glasses and was practically blind even more.
The next day I drove to school without the goggles over my eyes, or else that would be reckless driving, and for which I could serve some time in the joint for endangerment to the life of others. Nonetheless, I arrived at school approximately at 0715 hours, forty-five minutes before school was to begin. I decided to take the extra time to finish the hot chocolate I had purchased on my way to school, and to get a bit of breakfast; I knew that while I was blind I was not going to get any food considering I loathe the school food. I entered into Ms. Chiefsky's room (a teacher who has been kind enough to let her students loiter or have meetings in her room before school), went to the cafeteria quickly, and returned. I then had a senior committee meeting, which I could have done without sight, but was too lazy to begin at that time.
The meeting ended, so I headed off to the senior lounge. There, at about ten before eight, I put ...
Siren Fatale
Updated on November 10, 2005, 2:45 PM - Written by Tim Buttner
I always figured that the plan was flawed. It was clear from the beginning that someone would want a bigger piece of the pie than they could eat. When you assemble a team of criminals, you are dealing with… well criminals. By nature they are untrustworthy. I should have seen this coming. Why had I not? Perhaps it was because of the broad.
I was too blinded with infatuation to see what lay beneath the surface. To quote Orson Welles in the movie with him and the broad who tricked him, "The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I'll concentrate on that." Well, I will add to that quote and make it, "The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old or die young, so I guess I'll concentrate on one of the two." I managed to accomplish the second, but not by my own will. The will was all hers. Orson Welles said in that same movie, "Personally I don't like a girlfriend to have a husband, if she'll fool a husband, she'll fool me." Guess what, my broad fooled me all right. She got me like Ava Gardner got Burt Lancaster in that Hemingway flick. What was that flick again? The Killers. I was a killer, in my own little world. Eh, what does it matter? The world is larger than we would like to think.
I was employed in a hardware and kitchen store when she strolled into my life. I was repairing on a light that had gone out. I was close to done when she came through the door, soaking wet from the rain outside. I could not take my eyes off her. My hands kept working, but my mind was gone. I was blinded. That damn light came back on and… next thing I knew, I was on the ground with a bump on the back of my head. I woke up to those beautiful green eyes starring down at me. Her voice rang out like sirens calling me to jump off my vessel. I was at her bidding call.
She wanted me to show her some of dem new refrigerators we got in the other day. I was fine from my fall so I showed...