Triangulate Me!

There were times that one wanted to simply close his eyes and escape from the world. Now was such a moment, Caleb thought with his hands over his face, hoping to drown out the bright glow of the sun beaming down upon him. Rather than the comfortable warmth of a midsummer’s day, he felt quite toasty, like a lamp had been shoved over his head as he roasted upon charcoal.

That was not entirely in his imagination, as the clean, gray suit he was in was absolutely stifling. But in his bout of self-loathing, he had simply forgotten the simple act of casting the thick jacket off, leaving himself to stew in the heat like he deserved it.

After all, he had just failed. Right now, Caleb was just a crumpled heap of disappointment.

He sat on a bench in the park for several minutes, face covered by his palms, merely listening to the distant noises go by. If he couldn’t see anything, then that was just one step farther away from the reality he was in.

But that was only what he thought, as reality suddenly knocked against his shoes.

“Excuse me. I guess there was someone sitting here,” a girl’s voice lightly commented.

Annoyed at the interruption of his self-imposed solitude, Caleb turned his head sharply. “Yeah, it’s occupied! Are you-”

Caleb cut himself off, thankful that he hadn’t finished that sentence. Before him stood a girl, roughly his age. She had flowing brown hair and wore a chic summer blouse. Leaning over with a hand like she was going to pat him, the closeness of her attractive face suddenly made Caleb’s heart skip from its suddenness.

But that wasn’t what caused his words to hang in his throat. The sight of a long, white cane in her right hand had. That had knocked against his leather shoes.

“Why, I guess I didn’t make myself obvious enough. Yes, I’m blind. And… you’re taking up the entire bench all by yourself. Might you make some room for me?”

“Ah, ah, yes. Of course.” Hurriedly, Caleb scooted over. The girl sat down after sweeping her hand over to ensure it was clear.

Several minutes passed by in silence. An awful, dreaded silence for Caleb. While the girl simply basked in the sun with a healthy smile, Caleb nervously fidgeted, unsure of what to do. He rubbed the sweat off his face, pulled on his collar many times, and flapped the jacket for some ventilation.

“Aren’t you quite the antsy person? Got something on your mind? I feel like there won’t be any peace with you like you are now.” The girl turned her head toward him with a raised brow.

“Nah, it’s nothing.” Caleb tried to brush her off. What the heck’s with her?

“I’m blind, not stupid. Your fits of discomfort are so blatant that it’s even starting to make me feel awkward. And I can’t even see them!” Despite her harsh words, she beamed him a lovely smile, which tickled his heart surprisingly.

“But… you can’t see them. So why do they bother you?” Caleb wondered.

“Tell that to my other three senses. Your knees bouncing scream out nervous insecurity. Your thick clothing ruffling sounds way too muggy in this heat. As for smell… let’s just say that you’ve been in the sun for too long.”

Hearing that, Caleb flushed red. He was sweating quite a bit. And the fanning of his outfit to get cooler was wafting the resultant odor around like an oblivious gym idiot. He moved to leave, but a sharp voice stopped him.

“Sit back down, take off that jacket, and just talk. You seem to have time. If it won’t bother you to amuse a blind lady with nothing else to do, I’m all ears.”

Hesitantly, Caleb did as she asked. His entire reason for loitering listlessly here was because he had bombed a job interview. Although he had all the proper qualifications, the examiners just didn’t seem to like him. And he couldn’t figure out why. No matter how long he dwelled on it in this heat, nothing could come to him. Nothing worked as planned.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like there’s much more you can do here.” The girl got up from her seat and walked past him, making Caleb feel tiny. So deplorable even compared to a blind person…

But then, she looked back. “Why not join me for a drink and cool down. That is, if you have nowhere else to run off to.”

Caleb shook his head, surprised that he hadn’t been abandoned. The interview was schedule for the full day, but he was cut from the first round, so he had the entire afternoon to waste.

Getting up, he walked by her side, careful to match her pace. After several tens of steps, the girl finally spoke again. “By the way, my name is Jenna.” He told her his name in return.

After some time, they had arrived at a café, apparently a regular outing for Jenna. Along the way, Caleb couldn’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable as he watched that white cane of hers collide into objects constantly. She would weave left and right, almost hitting Caleb or moving too far, but eventually correcting herself. When she came upon an obstacle, the cane would tap on it from different angles, carefully checking its shape before moving around it. Caleb couldn’t help but be reminded of a Roomba as it traced across the room, carefully testing the boundaries.

Almost mechanically, Jenna constantly tested her surroundings before moving on. At one point, Caleb offered to guide her forward, but she rejected that.

“I have my own way of doing things. Please, don’t mind it.”

Caleb could only nod at her insistence, even as she took two steps to the left and then four steps to the right, before finally moving forward. The synthetic voice of a GPS going “recalculating, recalculating…” played in his mind. It felt quite bothersome, and of course, took twice the time to reach their destination.

Finally, he opened the door to the café for her. A blast of cool air from within felt like a winter paradise. He tapped his foot anxiously as Jenna felt her way through the doorway. And when the coast was clear, he bounded inside to escape from the heat.

After being ushered to her normal table and ordering some lunch, Jenna turned to Caleb once again.

“Now, wasn’t the wait worth it? You’re an impatient one. No time to stop and smell the roses.”

Jenna could tell how rushed he was and teased him for it. And Caleb thought he had done a good job holding it in. He could only chalk it up to her sharp senses that covered for her lack of sight. But still, there was one question on his mind.

“How do you do it? Dealing with not being able to see. I don’t think I could bear with all the trouble. At least, not with the snark and smiles you seem to have.”

Jenna stared at him with a weird look. With eyes that had no sight, it looked like she was peering straight through him.

“Is vision really all that important? Am I just an unfortunate person to you because of it?”

“Being surrounded by constant darkness, I don’t think I could handle it…”

“So, you think you have what I don’t. What do you see? What am I missing out?”

Caleb took a glance around the room. All he could gather was a normal scene at a restaurant. Two people bickered quietly a few tables down. A waitress walked by with a trayed that wobbled in her hand, which made Caleb nervous as he watched her. Overall, nothing much to take note of. It felt tiresome to relay such boring information.

“That’s it? All you’re capable of describing?” Jenna teased him with a giggle.

Caleb cocked his head to the side, wondering what else to make of the scene before him.

But Jenna interrupted him. “The way I see it, that couple is about to get the splits, and one of them is going to stomp off in a fit.” She pointed toward their direction.

Sure enough, the woman stood up moments later and slapped the man, before stomping out the door. When the waitress walked by to see what had happened, she slipped, right into the arms of a waiting Jenna, who propped her back up safely.

A look of amazement hung on Caleb’s face, in shock of how Jenna could easily catch another person tripping without sight. After the waitress thanked her, Caleb couldn’t help but ask, “How did you do that?”

“What? Catching the waitress? I could hear from the strange clacking of her steps that she sprained her ankle. The sound of overdoing it in heels gives off an obvious tell.”

“Well, what about the couple? It’s not like you could see their faces or how they were acting.”

Jenna snickered. “The tone of their voices made it pretty obvious. Even though they tried to keep calm in public, the growls of annoyance and hostility were like enemies waiting to pounce. There’s your problem there. You don’t even pay attention. What good is vision doing for you?”

Caleb was taken aback, even a little bit offended. How could someone with no sight picture a scene even better then he could?

“So, you picked up a few details that I didn’t catch. Big deal. I just didn’t think to consider them…”

Jenna giggled at that moment. “Rushing headlong and ignoring life’s little details. Probably why you failed your interview.”

“What?!” Now, Caleb was annoyed. He didn’t come for a teasing. As he was about to get up and leave, Jenna held out her hand to stop him.

“Tell me, how much do you think you know? How much does anyone know? We are all blind in some way, whether it be the things that happen where we don’t look. Or the immeasurable distance between two people simply talking like you and me. What we think we know is all a guess, and all we can do is gather our own little tricks.”

“What’s the point of all this?” Caleb turned and asked.

“A bit of advice, this is. Maybe, I can help you succeed next time.”

Caleb sat back down and sighed. “Well, go on.”

Pulling a napkin from the table and a pen from her pocket, she drew a small circle. From that circle she drew a line.

“Life is full of decisions. With no way of knowing where to go, you can only go forward.” She drew a line extending out. “But without knowing what way is truly forward, you test another path.” Another line was drawn from the circle, this time perpendicular. “And you hope that somewhere between those two paths, your goal can be found.”

Drawing a final line, the two lines connected to form a triangle. Caleb stared at the napkin as if that was the most obvious thing.

“So what? I saw you do that when you were walking. You bumped one way and then another way, before you went forward.”

Jenna held a finger up. “But is that all there is to it? The mind is not so simple. What would a triangle be without all the other shapes to define it? A triangle is not defined as such because it simply has three sides. Someone decided that there was a need to compare it with everything else.”

Holding out her hand to Caleb, she gave him an offer. “Why don’t you accompany me for the next few days? Another person’s perspective might be the trick.”

Caleb laughed at that moment. “That’s a strange, roundabout way of asking someone out for a date.” But then, he stared at her hand. Jenna’s beaming face strangely attracted him. His palm reached out and clasped hers. He had nothing to lose. It was nice to talk to someone to get things off his mind.

For the next several days, Caleb met Jenna at the park bench at the same time, the starting point to an afternoon together.

They went shopping, enjoyed the bustling streets filled with shops, and sampled the local cuisine. And along the way, Caleb watched Jenna like a hawk, trying to understand how she went about with her normal routine. After all, the whole thing was an exercise on understanding a different perspective.

He watched her bump into various things, but at some point, Caleb realized that she was not doing that randomly. She moved in distinct patterns to judge her surroundings. Her hand reached out and felt certain walls and specifically shaped objects.

Caleb brushed his hand over one such wall, noticing that it had a distinct texture to it. He would have never noticed this detail if he hadn’t slowed his pace to that of Jenna’s. This wall, along with the other things she touched, had a distinctness to them that she could use as a landmark in the darkness.

Unlike the road signs or outlines of buildings Caleb could see at a glance, this was all Jenna could use to map out her path. But the difference was how much more she understood about each detail she encountered.

When she came upon people walking along, she instinctively moved out of the way. The subtle noises that they made were like visions in a fog, clear once they were close enough. There were times that Jenna’s head perked up after hearing a specific voice, in which she proceeded to walk over and greet them.

These familiar people, too, were points that made up the map in her mind. With all of this as a guide, the city was split up into little planes of existence. They helped her triangulate where to go. Rather than the shallow perception of a wide landscape, Jenna’s world was an intimate connection of points.

And when they went back to that café one day, the angry couple from before was once again there. But this time, Jenna stepped in before they could get too heated.

Caleb watched nervously as the man and woman were hesitant to talk to each other, but strangely, they opened up when facing the sudden third wheel. Rather than the lashing of insults that they began with, Jenna kept them focused on the problems at hand, offering them solutions that they would otherwise had not come up with in the heat of the moment.

And in no time at all Jenna had served as the third point to stabilize the two-pronged relationship that was threatening to tip over. This unstable relationship was being supported by a sound mind uninfluenced by appearances.

But perhaps, that was exactly why Jenna was a good fit. The distracting gestures and belittling gazes were left out. She could sift through the arguments with a narrowed focus on words and tone. In the end, she picked up on some misunderstandings that neither of the couple had noticed. And after several more awkward moments, the couple left the café content that they had been foolish.

More than anything else, Caleb enjoyed the little differences that he did not think of to examine. What Jenna did and said were so far out of his norm that he couldn’t help but be amused by them. And how she used various cues – from touch to sound – to the fullest extent, things that Caleb underappreciated compared to sight, truly made him feel inadequate.

And with that, nearly a week went by.

Once again, Jenna was waiting for Caleb at that bench. But this time, he didn’t come. An hour passed by, and then two. All throughout that time, Jenna sat in silence, her heart growing solemn. She, too, had gained many new experiences, ones that she wanted to keep continuing.

With a heavy sigh, she moved to get up.

“JENNA! Sorry I’m late!” A familiar voice yelled out in the distance, causing her to pause and smile.

She wiped the tear that was bubbling in her eye before turning to face him.

“You. Are. Late! I was beginning to think that you had given up.”

The sound of huffing and puffing from Caleb was a definite sign that he had been running, so she could forgive him for it. Just as she was wondering where he had been, the sound of a jacket wafting caught her attention.

“You, had another interview?”

Caleb’s breathing was finally calming down. He was fanning himself to stay cool once again. “Y-Yeah, it was pretty sudden, and it lasted much longer than I expected. But, but you know what? I got the job!”

Jenna gave off a radiant smile, thankful for his success. “So, what did you do differently this time?”

“Well… let’s see. To start off with, I think I caught when the two examiners were sounding not so thrilled. They tried to hide their faces behind the clipboards, but I could tell from their tones. Man, my practiced presentation must’ve bored them, so I decided to change it up a bit.”

Caleb rubbed his chin as he continued going through each point.

“I also took the time to chat up the employees prior to the interview, rather than going straight for it blindly. I bumped into a lot of random people, but they revealed some tips for how to please the two examiners. It was well worth going off the beaten path.”

Caleb had realized that he jumped into his last interview with no idea of what to expect. He had no guideposts to help him in that dark unknown. By bumping into all sorts of people, a sense of what to expect finally dawned upon him.

“And guess what was the funniest part? The two examiners had a rivalry of sorts going on. Apparently, the two are alums from competing universities. Because of that, they’re a bit grabby if they think the other guy is going to snipe a recruit.”

“I think I’m beginning to see where you’re going with that.” Jenna giggled. She knew a schemer from the tone of his voice, especially when he was a novice.

“It only took a few statements questioning if I’d be a potential fit for the other guy’s team, and then, they were both adamant about how I would do better in theirs instead,” Caleb said, while sheepishly scratching his neck. He didn’t usually resort to such tactics, but he decided to go all in, since Jenna had put such effort in showing him her tricks.

“Manipulation, so devious, yet so proud of yourself at the same time.” Jenna teased.

“Hey, I got the job, right?”

“That you did. And since I was such a big help, where’s my reward?”

Caleb stuttered right then, unsure of how to respond. He looked at her face, glowing with anticipation that her efforts be thanked. He racked his brain, but he couldn’t think of a single thing that would please her in the weeklong time spent in her company.

After all, he had been so focused on her movements, her mannerisms, and whatnot that the last things he thought to pay attention to were her likes and dislikes.

“Ah… er… how am I supposed to know what to get you? Can I gather more data?” Caleb responded nervously. He felt like a few more dates were in order. Not that he minded, because he had fun during them.

Jenna broke out into a hearty laugh, spurred on by his silliness. It took her several moments to calm down. When she finally did, she turned toward him and put her head on his chest.

“You’re not the only one drawing lines from where they stand. I’ll save you the effort, by drawing the final line for you.”

With that, she reached up and gave Caleb a peck on the lips. When she pulled back, he saw that same lovely smile, but this time, it was one solely for him.