I wrote this short story in The Arabic language back in 1972 in a literature class in Iraq. I got arrested because of this story and I had to explain it to the government what I meant by all of my essays. They asked me why I wrote it ! and do I hate the government? Later I was cleared.I told them I was inspired by a short story “The Country of the Blind” a short story that was written by H.G.Wells. It was first published in the April 1904 issue of The Strand Magazine and included in a 1911 collection of Wells’s short stories, It is one of Wells’s best known short stories. I wrote the story in a different way.
The Planet of the Blinds- Part 1
The Rainbow Man (Adam)
Imagine a man named Adam is the only person who can see, and born with full sight on a planet where everybody is blind.
He grows up among blind people around him that cannot see, but they have evolved another sense to help them navigate; such as infra-sound, ultrasound, extra testability, smelling ability, and infra-red senses. Most of the land animal on the planet are blind too, except the cats. Adam has no extra senses because his body doesn’t need them, he can see.
The blind people who have these extra senses ware devices to reduce the ultra and infra-sound noises that causing them a headache. They made special eyes goggles to enhance their infrared sight. The blind people find Adam different, make fun of him, and laughed at his stories when he described the colors of the flowers, and the butterflies wings. They call him the boy who can see.
Radios and news always make a funny joke about Adam, making him a bedtime story for the kids. For the people of the planet, these moving objects of shallow singular light are the only thing they need to know.They evolved and created a culture, and farming dependency using their extra senses but not their sight. Those blind people can see objects by the infra-light senses, they can see dark shadows in the red color background or red figures in a dark background. The people of this planet have same eyes anatomical structure and use the infrared ability very well. If you don’t use a part of your body, in time that part become small or evolved into something else and that’s what happened to their eyes.The evolved to see with infrared.
Many girls ask Adam to describe their bodies, hair color, and they are intrigued by his new sense. Many blind girls got interested in him and wanted to date him, but he loves Iris, his childhood friend.
One of those girls on the planet of the blinds started to love Adam and she knew him when she was young. When she turns 24, she asked him for a date. He dated her in secret feared for her safety and also an implication of his involvement. She was a beautiful girl and graduated with a master degree in general science.
The girl’s family disagreed with her idea of dating Adam never mind marrying him.They started to argue with him and calling him the rainbow man, as Adam sees all colors and used to describe the rainbows in the sky to them.
Adam can see things and described things that they cannot understand, and he does not have extra senses that they have. The girl’s family is worried about their daughter life, and her security. They asked her not to be involved with Adam. They put a restriction on her, called Adam names, argued with him, and asked him to leave their daughter alone.
The society around Adam started to do the same thing. No one gives him a job, he cannot make friends. They starting to hate him, envy him, discriminate against him, and shunned his family who gave birth to him, calling them names too and make prejudice remarks.
Adam seems to grow fast, very focused, excelled in all the exams in the college and know what he wants, where to go and what to do. Adam decided to run away with Iris the blind girl who he loved and Iris loved him back. The blind girlfriend loved Adam blindly.
On that planet, they don’t call it a blind date. They don’t have a meaning for the word blind in their vocabulary. Adam was able to run away with Iris to another city, using a car he built himself. Everybody else has designed their cars using their infrasound and ultrasound sensors.
Adam is a smart man.He has created a new engine and that run crystals power. These Crystals are abundant in the planet of the blinds, and he makes use of it for better purposes.
The planet of the blinds do have a name and they call it Iris, the similar name given to Adam’s girlfriend.
Iris family was very upset with Adam when they discovered that their daughter has run away with him It happened that Iris family are from a high class, a well-connected family that had put Adam name on the police wanted list for kidnapping.
Since Adam was able to run away to another town, he comes up a specially designed clothes mixed with aluminum and other materials to wear so no one can see him with their infrared senses. In this new town, Adam and his wife changed their identity card to avoid any difficulties from the authority. He became prospered, he opened up a farming store and engineering business He has to pretend that he is blind, but the people in that town started to see some changes in his behavior and nobody seem to know what or put a finger on the mysterious man.
Adam works hard during the daytime while most of the people work at night as they relied on their infrared senses for it to work at night.
Adam have an engineering degree and he studied chemistry. With his knowledge and skills, he tries to convince the people the reason they are blind because of a defected gene, and that he can help them by getting him a lab and a grant to work on a cure.
After a period of time, Iris and Adam have four children, 2 girls, and 2 boys. All of them were born with full sight and they can see. Adam has used this to prove that the sense of sight is dominant and if it wasn’t, one child or two children will be born blind. They knew about the theory of evolution and natural selection in that planet before Darwin and Mendel discovered it.They know this universe must have a creator and they seek to know more about him.
As Adam succeeded with his finding of the cure, the radio stations get busy reporting it on their shows and many people start talking about it. Some people started to demonstrate against the cover-up, and people started asking questions; why the government not allowing them to listen to this man who can see and who can find a possible cure. Riots and fights have sparked causing many people got beaten up by the blind police.
The blind mafia in that planet has put interest with the research, and noticed the potential that can bring to them, so they informed Adam with their malicious pretension that they are rich and would like Adam to work with them by getting him a secret lab, and funded him for the research. Similarly, the blind Government starts to take a notice, they want the police to arrest Adam and put end to this mutation and people riots.
Many blind people came to know Adam and followed him as a man who can see and gave protection to his wife and family too. They supported him and protected him when people wanted to do harm to him.
Te laboratory creation went well, with funding made by the blind mafia. Adam was able to work on his research progressively. He was able to isolate the reason why they are blind. He found that his blinds ancestors on this planet were exposed to a certain chemical that made them blind. He finally found the antidote to it.
Little he knows that he is working for the mafia who later arrested him and took his formula of making the antidote. The mafia caused racketeering by obtaining money from the people and obtaining legality to use it to control people and government.
More than 6000 women and men went with Adam, some policemen and scientists have joined in to help and rescue him and they all went into a hideout. They were able to take most of the lab machinery, and gadgets with them so Adam can help them out.
After a year has passed in a new place, Adam was working hard to improve the new cure, and with it, he helped many blind followers. The followers were so happy, that they can finally see their own husband and wife for the first time, kids can see each other and play with their toys. Some kids were scared at first, but when they gained their sight back they got used to the newfound senses. They started to see the stars and the sky, and all saw the rainbow and acknowledged that the rainbow man was right. They used to think it was a myth. Many of his followers started getting married, and have their own children who can see. It was difficult and hard work to make the new hideout place home for all of the followers.
Adam and his followers live in a new place at the edge of the country, on a large island where no one can reach them.The mafia also made their own city from those rich people and others who can afford to buy the cure from them. While the blind Government still live with their old city and do not believe on those people who can see.They censor the media to discourage people from escaping from them.
The blind government and the blind police started to get worried. They could not leave this new breed of mutant alive, so they plan on invading those who claim that they can see.
They get some tips from the mafia about Adams were about and the blind government asked the Mafia to help them in return they get more money, more special crystals, more autonomy on their land and independent state called Zion.
The blind government was no match for those who can see. The population in the new island has been increasing to almost 100,000 strong men and women.They make and invent new machines and engines to defend themselves and to protect the island from invaders. But the mafia can fight them better than the blind government, as they have already gained their sight.
The blind police with their blind dogs who can see in the dark made a surprise attack. Many were killed from all sides. It was a massacre, blood everywhere.Flesh tearing dogs was tranquilized with the antidote, the dogs had a temporal coma. When the dogs woke up limping, they were very scared and disoriented and acted as if they were puppies who see the world for the first time, and they followed Adam and befriended him.
The mafia failed to get rid of Adam and his new community bringing the mafia to the dead end as they were hunted down by Adam’s followers and the blind police. The mafia was soon attacked by all sides as the blind government wants them dead too.The mafia was eventually ended, as they were no match to the special blind police infra senses and their dogs.The mafia in Zyion city then confiscated and took over by the blind government who later make preparation to attack the new Island.
Adam manufactured a flying car that can be used for transport and war. That was the start of the new beginning for them, he made many of those flying cars and used them to attack the invading force.
In the end, the Blind government and police made a truce with Adam and his followers because of the war from above has caused them great loss, and they couldn’t stand the infrasound and ultrasound noises that these cars were able to produce. Although the war caused them to be frightened, Adam never used bombs or any sorts of heavy weaponry on them. He did not use much firepower to kill them.He wanted fewer casualties, after all, they were his people. He loves them and he wants them to change and be cured.The blind government gave Adam the city of Zion and the Island, to live in peace, in exchange for the his new flying car research.but not his cure!
Adam agreed to take control of the new city and the Island. The rich people in Zyion city who were no longer blind didn’t like this idea.Those rich fat people were happy, and they wanted to stay alone without control, without paying too much tax, so they can extort more money in a legal way by sallying the cure, and they see Adam as a threat to their way of living.
The blind government built a wall around their city so no one can run away to the other side, and no one from the other sides can enter their city.
Adam became the leader of the new city and the island. In time, he started to build schools, hospitals, and teach many young students who in turn help others to learn, study and work hard to heal more people and the animal around them They were able to make a good life on the Island that they call now Iris and the new Zyion city that is changed name to Iristine
Adams worries are not over yet, as the rich people started to lobby and making friends with some of the blind government officers to take over everything by mean of a coup. They also revised a plan to kidnap Adam’s wife ( Iris), to control Adam from expanding his territory.
I wish our governments will not be blind of the facts that people can see the truth. I wish people can see in their hearts and soul and not depend on their eyes alone. You are what you can see. If you see good in your self and others and you see love and trust so you will be.
“Living is Easy with Eyes Closed.” John Lennon
“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.”
“Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see …each other in life. Vanity, fear, desire, competition– all such distortions within our own egos– condition our vision of those in relation to us.
“There’s none so blind as those who will not listen.” ―
“If love is blind, then maybe a blind person that loves has a greater understanding of it.” ―
“Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn’t mean it does not exist.” ―
“There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.” ―
To be continue .
Thank you for reading
Saad Ramzi Ismail ( Steve Ramsey), PhD
Thank you and have a nice dreams