Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Three Nov-Dec 2026.
None So Blind, story by Brian Kirk.
None So Blind
Stupid blind man up ahead. He’s using a white stick with a ball on the end, testing the uneven footpath. It’s mid-morning, grey skies, hardly anyone else on the street. I’m on my way to the shop to get milk – I slept late, no breakfast yet, irritable, hungry. Supposed to be working from home, but I’ve already ignored two calls from my boss. This is bullshit. We argued again last night, Alison and me. Same old routine. We’re both sick of it at this stage. She says we’re stuck in a rut and she’s right, but I won’t give her the satisfaction. When she left to go to her parents’ house, I was relieved, opened a bottle of red and drank every drop before falling asleep on the couch.
I can see the gaudy shop sign in the distance, but the blind man is slowing down now, useless eyes bent to the pavement while he pokes at some trash with this stick. When I get near, I drag my feet on the path, clear my throat, as a kind of warning to him I suppose. But just as I’m passing, he steps out suddenly to his left and I collide with him. I’m not a big man, but he’s smaller, feels light as a feather. He hits the ground before I can reach out to grab him. It’s all in slow motion, the sound of his skull hitting the pavement seems so loud and there’s blood – on the ground, on the side of his face.
‘Are you okay?’ I bend over him, take his arm, try to get him back on his feet.
He looks at me with his dead eyes – or he looks past me at something that may or may not be there.
‘Thank you,’ he says. His voice is hoarse, like a whisper.
I’m not sure what to do now. I need to get to the shop and get home to phone my boss. I should probably phone Alison too.
‘My stick!’ the man says, suddenly frightened.
‘It’s okay, I have it.’ I bend to retrieve the white stick, holding him steady with my left hand at the same time. His body rocks slightly, as if he might fall again. I put the stick in his right hand and take my hands away for a second to see how he fares on his own. Not good.
‘Take my arm, please,’ he says.
I take it.
‘Where are you going?’ I ask as we set off together. He walks so slowly.
‘There’s a café along here soon,’ he says.
We walk on in silence. After a while we pass the shop. I wonder should I ask him to wait outside while I go in to get some milk, but I can’t do it.
When we reach the café, I realise he looks a mess, so I clean him up a little. There’s dried blood on his cheek and on the heel of his hand where he wiped it carelessly. I find a tissue in my pocket and spit on it the way my mother used to when I was a kid and wipe his face. I always hated that, but he suffers me to do it in silence. I assume they’ll all know him in the café and I’ll be able to leave him there and get on with my day. But no. Inside it’s busy and when I find a table no one comes to take our order, so I ask him what he wants. I get him tea and a cream doughnut and a latte for myself and we sit down together.
Cream oozes from his doughnut when he bites it. There are traces on his fingers, on his face, and I take a napkin and wipe him clean. He smiles for the first time, restored to himself by the hot tea and cake.
‘You’re very kind,’ he says.
I’m not. I hate so many things. Myself, my boss, the lousy work I have to do, maybe even Alison. Every time we meet these days is an ordeal. We square up to each other and exchange verbal blows. I know this isn’t what you’d call a normal relationship.
My phone begins to ring again. I silence it.
‘Someone’s looking for you,’ the blind man says. ‘I’ve kept you long enough.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I say, ‘just work stuff. It’ll keep.’
I’m not sure why I lie to him. It’s Alison. For a moment I remember how things were between us at the start. I imagine she’s calling to say she’s sorry, that we should never fight again, and I’m saying yeah, no, you’re right, we really need to get away from here, to give ourselves a chance to find ourselves again. But I don’t answer it. I know she’s really calling to deepen the argument further, to take it to places we can never get back from. She’s like someone who storms out of a room to great effect having proclaimed the final word only to come back moments later with more to say: and another thing…
I’m not myself anymore, and Alison is not herself either but a cranky simulacrum
I have devised. I know there’s no going back to before.
‘Does it ever get too much?’ I ask him.
He tilts his head – he doesn’t understand.
‘You know …’ How do I ask him about his lack? ‘Not having your sight, missing so much of the world?’
He stands up to take his leave and pauses by the table for a moment. I don’t want him to leave. I want Alison to see us, me and the blind man together.
‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s just the way it is.’
I want to ask him to stay a bit longer, but I don’t. I watch him use his stick to negotiate his way between the crowded tables. My phone bursts into life again. I’m relieved to see it’s work this time.
© Brian Kirk
Brian Kirk has published two poetry collections with Salmon Poetry, After The Fall (2017) and Hare’s Breath (2023) and a fiction chapbook It’s Not Me It’s You (Southword Editions, 2019). His first novel Riverrun is forthcoming from Library Tales Publishing in late 2026.