Blind

I'm busily daydreaming , pretending that I'm watching the paint peel in the supply room when a crackity-thackity sound disrupts my thoughts. What's this?

Lucy, a cute girl who pushes papers at some other damncube in this maze, is slamming the copier lid, over and over again. Hard.
On her own head.
She seems to be Xeroxing her face, but the machine has no paper- it's just flashing lights and emptiness. Nothing is produced but sound.
K-thack! K-thack! She whimpers almost inaudibly between each blow.
K-thack ! oohhh... K-thack! This is hard to be around.

I grab her shoulders from behind and turn her towards me.Her pretty face is a swollen bleary mess. It's a good thing she's not into heavy make-up, because those tears would have made even the firmest foundation run faster than a herd of wired gazelles from a pack of rabid lions.
What is wrong?

"I can't stand looking at it anymore," she wails, looking at nothing- " it's just too horrible!"

Oh shit. It dawns on me that she has been staring directly into the blinding copier flash. I hope she hasn't permanently damaged her sight, although I'm suddenly sure that such was her intent.
She struggles to pull away, determined to return to her copier flaggelation- she twists down, then out of my arms.
K-thack! ooohhh...

I turn the power switch off. I pull the plug from the wall and place my foot on the cord.
Enough!
Lucy stops hitting herself and stands still, her face pressed into the now-dark glass panel.
I want to hold her, stroke her hair and tell her everything is OK, but she's in a place where such statements are utter bullshit. Right now things are not OK for her and I'm not even going to try to lie to her about it.

After a few shuddering breaths, she stands up, blinks. A plastic chunk of the Xerox lid breaks off and falls on the floor. The rest of the lid hangs on one hinge.

"Oh, hey. I didn't see you here- all I can see are spots," she says , somehow managing to smile.

"Well, no shit", I reply, "you really shouldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"For starters, you've completely trashed the copier. Also, you may go blind."

"If you'd seen what I've seen, you'd wanna be blind too!"
Uh oh. I thought she was snapping out of it, but she's this close to losing it.

"Look! Dammit," I bark at her while reaching into my shirt pocket, "use these."
I press something into her hand. It's a pair of small black leather squares connected by a few rawhide strands.

"Do you know what those are?"

She dangles the squares from one hand and blinks, still spotty from her copier combat.

"A really, really small bikini top?" , she ventures, smiling. She manages to have a sense of humour at this moment- that's a good sign.

"No, those are blinders, like you'd use to keep a horse from spooking. I used to wear them all the time, but I didn't know I still had them with me. You can have them. "

"So you've seen it too?"

"Yes." I'm not exactly sure what she's seen but I know that my answer is true.

Lucy's sight must be returning. She looks me in the eye - at first I think she's angry with me, but she's not- not with me anyway.

"You know, fuck this," she says, tossing the blinders into a trash can marked 'Paper Only.'
I don't need these."
Yes, her sight is returning and it's bringing her vision back with it.

"You OK now?"

"Close enough."

She slips her arm into mine and we exit the supply room. Behind us there's a faint snapping sound followed by a crash as the copier lid breaks away and clatters to the cold floor.

We don't bother looking back.