A man was driving through the city when suddenly he lost his sight. He did not sink into darkness but into a dense whiteness, a blinding light, as though he had been submerged in milk. His panic rose quickly, and he cried out, confused and helpless. Cars behind him honked, horns blaring, and a stranger approached, offering to help. This stranger drove the man home, promising to return his car later, though he would never keep that promise. The blind man told his wife what had happened, how suddenly the world had been swallowed up in white. She comforted him but felt fear stir within her. That night, the thief who had helped him abandoned the car, keeping it for himself, believing he had taken advantage of a desperate man. But he too, while driving away, suddenly became blind. The whiteness fell on him as well, and the car crashed. The disease, if disease it was, had spread to him.
The next day, the blind man visited an ophthalmologist. The doctor examined him carefully, testing his eyes, his pupils, his optic nerves. Everything seemed normal, yet the man could not see. The doctor could find no explanation, but he promised to study the case further. That evening, the doctor sat in his home, troubled, reflecting on the strange condition of his patient. Suddenly, he too went blind. The same white sea engulfed him. His wife heard his cry and rushed to him. He told her what had happened, and though she was horrified, she stayed by his side.
Soon, blindness spread rapidly. The first man’s wife went blind, the thief, the doctor, and every patient who had been in the clinic that day. The government realized something extraordinary and terrifying was happening. Fearing contagion, the authorities acted with ruthless efficiency. All those who had gone blind, along with those who might be infected, were rounded up. They were transported under armed guard to an abandoned mental asylum on the edge of the city. The place was decrepit, its windows barred, its floors filthy, its walls peeling. Soldiers surrounded it with rifles ready, under strict orders to shoot anyone who tried to escape. The blind were trapped, condemned to fend for themselves.
Among them was the doctor’s wife. Unlike the others, she could still see, but she lied, claiming she had gone blind too, so that she would not be separated from her husband. She stepped into the asylum, silently carrying her secret. She alone had the power to see, but she bore it as a burden more than a gift. To admit her sight would mean endless demands, endless responsibility, and perhaps even danger. She watched in silence as the others groped their way through the dark corridors, while to her the ruin of the asylum stood in full view.
The government delivered food each day, leaving rations in boxes at the gate. At first, the blind attempted to share fairly. The doctor tried to organize them, speaking calmly, guiding them toward cooperation. His wife helped silently, describing the layout of rooms, arranging beds, without revealing how she knew. But soon more blind arrived, filling the wards beyond capacity. Tension grew. The thief, still alive at this time, mocked the others and preyed on their weakness, trying to take what was not his. He was cruel and arrogant, exploiting the helpless, until an infected wound in his leg worsened and killed him. His corpse rotted in the ward, and no one dared to move it, the stench of death filling the air.
Then another group of internees seized control of the food supply. They had found sticks and weapons and used them to intimidate the others. They announced that food would no longer be shared freely. Those who wanted to eat must pay. At first, they demanded jewelry, watches, money, and whatever valuables the blind carried with them. Desperate to survive, the others handed over their treasures, though such things had lost all value in the collapsing world outside. The doctor’s wife watched this with disgust, torn between speaking out and remaining hidden in her role as one of them. Soon, the valuables ran out, and the armed men demanded something else. They demanded the women.
The women were forced to go to the men’s ward in exchange for rations. They endured abuse to save their companions from starvation. The doctor’s wife went with them, both to protect them and because she felt she could not abandon them to suffering alone. Inside, she witnessed the brutality of men who had lost all restraint, who had turned human misery into currency. It was more than she could bear. When the leader of the gang came close to her, she seized a pair of scissors and stabbed him in the throat, killing him instantly. Blood gushed as he collapsed. The balance of power shifted. The others, emboldened by her act, rose up and overpowered the rest of the gang. The reign of terror ended, but the asylum remained a place of despair.
Soon after, a fire broke out. Flames spread quickly through the dry, filthy corridors. The blind screamed and stumbled in terror, trampling over one another. The soldiers outside, terrified of contagion, did not intervene. The fire consumed much of the building, and the blind poured into the streets. There, they discovered no soldiers were left, no guards to prevent their escape. They were abandoned, left to a city that had already collapsed. The blindness had spread everywhere. Soldiers had fled, doctors, officials, and workers were all blind. The city had become a graveyard of abandoned cars, rotting garbage, and wandering figures searching desperately for food and water.
The doctor’s wife led her group out into the streets. There was her husband, still blind but calm and wise. The first blind man and his wife clung to each other. The old man with the black eyepatch, the boy with the squint, and the young woman with dark glasses, who had once been a patient at the clinic, joined them. Together, they formed a small band, united by suffering. The doctor’s wife became their guide. She saw everything: the filth, the excrement covering sidewalks, the bloated corpses of those who had starved or been trampled, the abandoned shops with broken windows, the supermarkets invaded by crowds of blind people clawing at shelves. She saw, and she could not forget. The others stumbled, groping, falling, but she steered them with her voice and her hands.
They entered a supermarket in search of food. Inside, chaos reigned. Blind crowds fought for scraps, some slipping in pools of spilt oil, others clutching rotten fruit, biting into it with desperate hunger. The smell was unbearable, a mixture of rot, sweat, and despair. The doctor’s wife guided her group to what remained, filling sacks with whatever could still be eaten. They fled the store, barely escaping the madness. In the streets, dogs prowled, fierce with hunger, gnawing on the remains of corpses. The city had become a place where civilization had disintegrated, where the thin veneer of order had dissolved into savagery.
They eventually reached the home of the doctor and his wife. Miraculously, it was still intact. Inside, the group found a fragile sanctuary. They cleaned, organized, and shared what little remained of food. They washed in buckets of water carried from the streets. They formed a small community, bound by compassion. Though they were blind, they treated one another with kindness and respect, unlike the cruelty they had known in the asylum. The doctor’s wife watched them, her heart heavy with sorrow yet also lifted by their courage. She had seen both the worst and the best of humanity. Though she bore the torment of sight, she also found solace in the tenderness her companions showed one another.
Days passed. Life became routine in their small shelter. One morning, without warning, the first blind man awoke and saw. The whiteness lifted, and he could see his wife’s face, her features blurred by tears of joy. His cry brought the others rushing, and soon one after another, their sight returned. The old man with the eyepatch, the young boy, the woman with dark glasses, the doctor himself — all began to see again. At last, the doctor’s wife, who had never lost her sight, could rejoice openly, no longer alone in her vision. They went out into the street, watching as others around them too regained their sight, staring in wonder at the ruined city, at the devastation and filth, but also at the sky, the light, and the simple miracle of being able to see.
The blindness ended as suddenly as it had begun, with no explanation, no cure discovered, no authority restored. Those who had endured it stood transformed. They had known hunger, humiliation, cruelty, and kindness. They had lived like animals and like saints. The doctor’s wife looked around her city, at its brokenness and its fragile hope, and she understood that they were all changed forever. Sight had returned, but blindness of another kind still lingered, the blindness of selfishness and cruelty that had always been in the human heart. Yet in the small bonds of care that had formed among her companions, she saw also the possibility of renewal. The world was broken, but the people who had survived would have to decide what kind of life they would build from the ruins.