Stockholm

We took the bus to an industrial looking area and walked along the highway for half a mile. She checked her phone and said, “This is it,” at a fenced off lot with some trailers in it. I let her deal with the guy in the entry hut. She pointed at one of the structures inside to make sure she was getting it right. He lifted the gate but we could’ve totally just walked around it.
The trailer she pointed at was the entrance to a Blind Experience pop-up museum. I couldn’t read the sign, but that’s what she told me. At the counter she asked if everything was in Swedish and they said yes, in Swedish.
She looked at me like, “Tough shit,” and bought two tickets and two sodas.
The first part was a presentation about the Braille guy and his system with touching exercises. I couldn’t understand our guide so I couldn’t learn how to read Braille. Pretended to keep up for a few minutes, infuriated but trying not to laugh. She kept a straight face. Ran her finger over the bumps and nodded at the guy.
The second part was the real blind experience, a procession of staged rooms that were pitch black. This part really asked, “How would you like it.” We crammed into a hallway first as a way to eliminate the light. The tour guide gave an introduction that didn’t seem to matter. When someone closed the door behind us all seven or eight in our group jumped, or at least gasped.
The two of us held hands. She got up on her toes and said, “It’s gonna be a bedroom,” in my ear, in English. Then the guide opened the door to let us loose into the dark and she let go of me. There were too many nervous bodies shuffling around, I couldn’t bump back into her. And if she wanted to let go I figured I should let her. Not like every blind person has a blind boyfriend.
I felt a bed in the dark, some pillows. Sat down on it and waited while people talked too loud and too low at the same time. The room felt small, trailer-sized, but I could’ve just seen that and now known it. Strangers got close and I did my best to dodge them without standing up, holding my breath for some reason. Thought about laying down but didn’t want anyone to sit on me by accident.
It was a good time to consider other times I’d spent sad or misunderstood, in beds, but the guide cut me off. His tone said we were clearing out, moving into another experience. I followed little Swedish mumbles that funneled through a doorway, scared to crash into someone that wasn’t my girlfriend. Then I got all nervous, wondering if I could get left in a larger room and forgotten. When I wasn’t even blind.
Turned out this was a kitchen. I understood glas and kniv, but had no interest in playing with a sink or using silverware. Crazy that being blind was just constantly trying to find things. And were there really knives? Or maybe he meant it was a kitchen but there was no glass and no knives, for our safety. I shuffled across the room like C-3PO, like a bitch, in the direction that the next one would probably be in. Did little wax-on wax-off motions like an offensive lineman in a video game and waited for the guy to communicate another transfer.
The next one was an outdoor experience, a busy sidewalk. This was stupid because it was clearly indoors. Shitty speakers playing car sounds. Kind of, honestly, disrespectful to the real life challenges of blind people.
I heard a familiar beeping through the speakers, knew there was a fake crosswalk with the button you’re supposed to push if you want to cross, and a different tone in the beep that meant cross. Obviously there wasn’t traffic. The guide said the word Braille a few times but I didn’t bother looking for it.
I started my C-3PO thing again but tripped off the curb. Put my hands out to try to catch something and brushed against a guy’s cock area with my right hand, then fell all the way down and cracked my kneecap. I winced in silence on the ground, holding the guy’s foot in my hand. He stepped back and said something like, “Oops, somebody fell,” in Swedish.
I ducked away real low. There was an awkward silence when no one said, “Sorry, that was me, I’m okay.” My fingertips swept along the ground while I skipped as far away from him as I could.
When everyone stopped trying to figure out who fell and that conversation was on the other side of the room, I let go of the ground and stood up. Perfectly still.
There were three speakers. One played the sound of children playing, another played cars and the crosswalk beep. Dogs barked in the third. I found the rhythm and closed my eyes. Entered a meditative state which soothed the pain in my knee, somehow, but it was quickly disrupted by a warmth in my personal space. Something brushed against my zipper and I reached out but it felt cold again and that person was gone. Faster than me.
Eventually the tour guide cleared his throat and ran through a scripted Swedish version of, “Thank you everyone, hope you enjoyed yourselves.” There were a few laughs, it was a good time. I didn’t say anything. He opened a door and light poured in.
The doorway was like a grey sunrise from the other side of the room. It made everything look so dumb, all this fake stuff. Six inch plywood platform that took me down. Punching bag foam around random pillars, gymnastics style in some places on the ground. Foam over everything. Nothing actually dangerous.
No sign of my girl. I limped across that fake-ass situation and went through the door behind everyone else.
The parking lot was three metal steps down. She stood there in the middle of it with her sweater’s sleeve pinched in her hand and her second knuckles pressed against her bottom lip. Smiling but trying not to.
She told another couple that I didn’t speak Swedish, so I was probably the one who fell. I bowed in apology. Half of a wave, brushed it off. “Yeah, but I also couldn’t see.”
We walked back to the bus stop a little bit happier than we were before. She talked about gifts, miracles, how it’s all basically light. I showed her my C-3PO shuffle and she almost pissed herself on the side of the highway.