Katiana (with passion): The flowers are beautiful. They’re purple, and purple is my fav–

Mother (calmly): Katiana.

Mother (louder): Katiana. What’s wrong?

Katiana: blinks, rubs eyes with back of hands, blinks wildly again.

Mother (frantically shakes her shoulders): Katiana! What are you doing?

Narrator: Katiana couldn’t speak. Well, more accurately, she couldn’t see, and that had rendered her speechless. Her thoughts became panicked.

Mother fades into background. Katiana rubs her eyes.

Katiana: I cannot see. I have gone blind.

Narrator: In fact, Katiana had gone blind, but even in her panicked thoughts, she didn’t truly believe she had gone blind. She only said so because it seemed most true at the moment. Certainly, she would come across a more plausible explanation.

---

Mother (reappears): Katiana, you must speak to me! Tell me what is wrong! Are you sick? Don’t you feel well? Speak!

Katiana (calm, resolute): I am blind

Mother (shrieks): And I am having a heart attack!

Narrator: In fact, Katiana’s mother was having a heart attack. It was not because of Katiana’s blindness, rather, by the sudden shock of admission by Katiana of her supposed but not quite believed statement. Katiana was not in the habit of lying to her mother and so her mother believed her.

Katiana (calmly): I wish, Mother, that I could help you, or call us both an ambulance, but you see, I am blind, and therefore I cannot help you.

Narrator: Although Katiana was speaking calmly, she was still inwardly panicking. Katiana knew of the frailty of her mother’s heart and therefore did not wish to over-stimulate her.

Mother: My heart! Oh, it hurts, it hurts so! The pain! I shall die today!

Katiana: You shall die, Mother, if you do not call an ambulance immediately.

Mother: I am having a heart attack! How shall I call the police?

Katiana: Dial the number on the payphone. I will speak.

Mother: obeys

---

Emergency Operator (professionally): Emergency operator, what is your emergency?

Katiana (calmly): Good day. I am blind and my mother is having a heart attack. Not because I am blind, but because of my admission of blindness. Please send help immediately.

Emergency Operator: What is your name and location?

Katiana: My name is Katiana Alcatrov. I cannot tell you my location because I am blind. However, I was next to a field of beautiful purple flowers when I realized I could no longer see.

Emergency Operator: Katiana Alcatrov? Are you the young lady who called to tell us your father was choking on a fish, only to discover it wasn’t true?

Narrator: It was in fact, the same Katiana who had called. Her father had indeed not been choking on a fish, but rather a fish bone. And by the time the emergency personnel had arrived, Katiana’s father had swallowed the bone and the emergency had passed.

Katiana: It is I.

Emergency Operator: We cannot respond to all calls of emergency and particularly not of those known to be of fraudulent nature. Good day.

Narrator: In fact, the emergency concerning Katiana’s father had passed by the time the emergency personnel had arrived, rendering them useless. However, Katiana’s father had swallowed the bone of the fish and it had punctured his lung. Katiana awoke the next morning to discover her father’s lung was deflated and her father was dead.

Katiana: Good day.

Mother: I am dying.

Katiana: Good death to you, Mother. I shall wander in the purple flowers until I die too.

Mother: Good wandering death to you, Katiana.

Narrator: And so it came to pass.