Excerpt:

“Not this again,” he sighed, and abruptly let go of her waist.

“Not what again?” she asked, hotly.

“This blindness thing.” He grasped her upper arms, and squeezed, his mouth set in an angry line. “Listen, Sophie. Ever hear that grass is greener on the other side?”

“Of course,” she said, nettled. “I’m not dumb.”

“This is all this is,” he said. “You think it’d be so great to be blind. You think it’d be real nice to be able to focus. To be different. To be in love.” Disdain. “But you know what? The grass isn’t greener on the other side. On the other side you don’t even know the damn grass is green.”

“Of course they know it’s green,” she said, and shook her shoulders. He released his grip. “Nobody’s born blind. They know exactly what grass looks like.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe they forget.”

“I’d never be so dumb as to forget what grass looks like.”

“Not everybody is you.”

“Well I really don’t think anybody is that--just--hey.” She put her hands on her hips as he turned to go.

“What? I want some cake.”

“Why don’t we find out what they think?”

“What are you talking about?” he said, continuing his stride into the kitchen. She followed him, tapping her fingers against her lips in thought. Peeling the plastic wrap from the cake plate, Thomas clattered the silverware drawer open, pulled out a fork, and ladled a much-frostinged white square into his mouth.

“Graceful.”

“Thought you’d appreciate it,” he said through a mouthful.

“Yeah.” She reached for the cake plate, scraped a bit of stale frosting off the plate with a fingernail. Sucked on her finger meditatively. “What I mean is, why don’t we ask the blind people what it’s like?”

“Ask them? We don’t know any blind people,” he said, incredulously.

“No, I know, but remember? On the news? There’s that colony.”

“I have work,” he said guardedly.

“So take a day off. I know you have paid time saved up.”

Thomas shoved another piece into his mouth, ferociously. Crumbs dropped onto the counter. “Fair enough. But some colony of strangers? Where we can see and they can’t? Sounds like a bad idea.”

Sophie folded her arms. “They welcome new people. The news said.”

“Yeah, new blind people. They just want to live their lovey lives on their own. Nobody likes to be interrogated about how they live.”

“It wouldn’t be an interrogation,” Sophie said, and stole the fork from Thomas’ hand on its way to his mouth. She chomped down on soft sugar. “You make it sound so awful. I’m just curious.”

“Well, I’m not. Leave me out of it,” Thomas said, taking the fork, and licking the frosting from the tines.

“Don’t you wonder what it’d be like to be in love?”

“Not really,” Thomas said, and threw the fork in the sink. On his way out of the kitchen, he snapped the light off, whether out of habit or spite Sophie wasn’t sure.

She stood in the near-dark, eyeing the streetlight falling through the window, then contemplatively closed her eyes. With both hands she fumbled for the plastic wrap and tried to cover the cake tightly again.

It wasn’t as easy as she had supposed.