Whispers in the Dark

VICTA Changemakers
Blindness Awareness Month

#WorldSightDay

A poem by Ruqayyah Ullah

When I was little, whispers told me things. They told me the sky wasn’t just “blue” — it made you think of bubble gum ice cream. They told me the park was full of secret colours: the bench was supposed to be black but the colour had faded from age, use and weather it was now more grey like a stormy sky, the puddles were shiny like pennies, and the dog was wagging its tail, it sounded like wind. The whispers would press facts into my hand — soft as a moth’s wing — and I would hold them carefully, like diamonds.

At the cinema, When the lights dimmed the whispers gave me pictures. The sounds of crunchy popcorn hummed around me, the whispers helped me draw the hero in my head: a brave young girl, with a laugh like bells, her life full of intrigue and adventure. when someone on screen was lying (their voice went a shade thin) and when someone was brave (their footsteps stopped trembling). Other children pointed at the characters and their faces; I pointed at the pictures the whispers had helped me paint on the inside of my eyes.

They told me small things, too — the colours and contrasts of a crackling fire, the way love showed on someone’s face, the intricacy of relationships, the depth of unspoken languages. The whispers were quiet and careful, like someone stepping around sleeping cats. They corrected me when I guessed wrong: “No, that isn’t rain — it’s the washing machine,” and I would welcome the corrections as though I knew they would eventually come to an end.

Once, I got lost between the clothes rails at the supermarket. I could hear people’s feet and the rattle of hangers. I was small and my hands kept bumping soft fabrics and cold metal. The whispers guided me which way to escape. They told me which aisle had baked goods that tasted like heaven in my mouth and when reaching the checkout which seller would smile when I handed them the money. I treasured their directions like the key to a map.

The whispers felt like friends. Like tiny birds that landed on my shoulder and told me stories of colours I had never seen. When the wind stripped the leaves off the trees, the whispers described the beauty in a way that no media had captured yet. When the days were long and cold and nights were sleepless, they told me secrets about their life that made me laugh even when my toes felt numb.

Sometimes other people would ask me. “What colour is it?” pointing at something in the distance. The whispers would hand me an answer wrapped in something warm — “It’s the red/ maroon colour of cherries,” they’d say — and allow me to say it out loud like a magic word. People would smile and tell me good answer or good job, but without the whispers I would have never come this far.

As I grew, the whispers quieted in places where I learned the rhythm of footsteps and sounds. I could go on my own to: the town centre, houses of loved ones, the local shops. But they (the whispers) never left entirely. They came back in new ways — in the moments when you are about to cross a road, in the corrections you make when a person’s face changes. They were in the pauses I left in conversations for someone else to fill.

The first time I tried to do something without them. I had a stubborn idea that I was big enough, old enough, mature enough. I stood at the bus stop carefully listening to every footstep like a clue, and for a moment there was no moth’s wing, no bird on my shoulder. The world huge and I very small. I felt for a voice that was not there and began to trembled. A woman behind me asked, “Are you ok?” and I said yes because I did not want to be found wanting. But I knew the truth then: without the whispers I would fumble and not know which way the sun had gone.

I had always known. I could not have shaped my days or learned the secrets without that steady, soft telling. I could not have managed the world without her.

You see I was born blind the whispers were the whispers of my mum guiding me through life. I thank her more and more as each day passes.

By Ruqayyah Ullah

Watch & share Ruqayyah’s poem on YouTube

Kieran is standing outside dressed smartly for an occasion. He is wearing a black shirt and a beige dinner jacket.

My name is Ruqayyah Ullah…

Hi my name is Ruqayyah I am a freelance Forest School Assistant. The love, joy and wonder of 0-5 ages children is indescribable. My days are full of play, wonder and creativity oh and mess, mess mess and more mess. A fact about me is I can’t stand when people make comparisons; themselves to someone else or others. If I could change one thing in the world, hypothetically, it would be the entire system, enough said.