The last layer came away.
And light came through my eyelids.
I need to go back before I tell you what I saw.
I need to tell you how I lost it.
I lost my sight when I was eight.
It started as a stupid playground joke that spun out of control.
It was the last week of August. The air was thick and hot, and the cicadas were screaming in the trees. I was on the swings in our neighborhood park, pumping my legs as hard as I could. I loved the swings more than anything. I loved that moment at the very top, when your stomach drops and for a split second you’re not attached to anything at all. Like flying.
I remember laughing at something my neighbor’s son said.
His name was Niye. That’s what everyone on our street called him. His baby sister couldn’t say his real name, so it stuck, and by the time I knew him nobody called him anything else.
