Peter Mason was not born without sight, but as far as doctors can now tell, he is now totally and permanently blind. He will never see his family again, never know whether the apple he is eating has a worm in it, never know where the salt is on the table, never read a book or go to the cinema, never gaze out of the window and know what kind of day it is. He has entered a world of darkness in which he is its only citizen.
There are consolations for the blind, are there not? Do they not discover how acutely they can hear? Do they not find fresh discovery in music, in the great aural landscape of sound, where melody takes the freshness and vigour of a rainbow?
And is radio not a more perfect medium than television? For in its direct simplicity, it can reach right into the mind, and speak to the conscious and the unconscious, unburdened by the clutter of visual imagery, or the confusion of conflicting colours.
There is nothing so clear as the voice in the dark, the book being read in the carefully modulated voice of a skilful actor or the piano nocturne in the totally lightless night. In that utter darkness, sound can arrive like a single bright shaft of shining light.
World of silence
But Peter Mason cannot hear that sound, cannot have his soul bathed by that single shaft of light, because he is totally deaf also. He will not hear his wife call his name, nor ever again know the sound of the sea or the caress of the piano keys. No voice will speak to him, no song enchant. He has entered a world of silence in which he is its only citizen.
Yet others have entered such solitary worlds before, have they not? Few, to be sure, but it is not entirely unknown for individuals to be marooned on a planet in which there is no light, no sound.
The most famous such inhabitant was Helen Keller, whom Annie O'Sullivan taught to communicate with that other world, our world, the one which enclosed Helen's own remote world where the mind heard and saw nothing. Anne O'Sullivan took Helen Keller's fingers and trained them to turn embossed patterns on paper into coherent words.
Thus she who could neither see nor hear was able to transform the skin on her hands into sensory organs, through which our world was finally able to communicate with hers.
But Peter Mason has no fingers, no hands, no arms. He has no sensitive epidermis upon which a dedicated therapist can trace letters, endlessly, repeatedly, as a first step towards understanding Braille. He will never be able to dress himself, wash himself, clean himself or go the lavatory unassisted. His most intimate requirements, the ones we all go to such trouble to ensure we perform in utmost privacy, will be the duty of others to attend to, for all the days of his life. In his mid-forties, he has been banished to a world in which there is no light, no sound, no dignity, no independence.
Magilligan Strand
This abominable fate was not caused by some freakish accident, but by the deliberate deed of wicked people. Peter, a civilian security guard with the British army, lost his eyes, his ears, his arms, after he picked up a flask on the ground near Magilligan Strand, Co Derry, on February 8th. He turned it over to examine it. It had a tilt-switch which was triggered by this movement, detonating the explosives concealed within, instantly ending his life - not with death, but by an exile to a silent, lightless, touchless hell, one made by the Real IRA.
The Real IRA: they haven't gone away, you know. And why should they? In essence, they got away with the Omagh bombing, and they have got away with much since; worse, they are growing. And any broad measure to sweep these heathen savages into the confinement they deserve will be denounced as a threat to the peace process by their rivals for ownership of the republican conscience, Sinn Féin-IRA.
It is not enough to condemn RIRA violence as Sinn Féin-IRA does, nor to insist that the peace process is essentially a political process. To have any meaning, the peace process must entitle the lawful authorities to take the necessary measures to protect life and to pursue wrongdoers. Yet what would the response of Sinn Féin-IRA be if the Northern security forces raided premises in nationalist areas looking for, say, the Real IRA bomb factory which manufactured the device which ruined Peter Mason's life, or for the killers of Matthew Burns in Castlewellan last month?
Decades of atrocities
We know what the quid is - it is places in government, it is offices in Westminster, it is invitations to Downing Street and the White House, it is a release of prisoners, it is the magic wand of amnesia over decades of atrocities. But what is the quo? Yes, yes, to be sure, there is no formal Provisional IRA war any more; but then neither is there a formal announcement that it is over forever.
Instead, we have two IRAs, one "dissident", one not, swimming in the benign sea of peace process appeasement, both choosing to kill whenever they want. There is no general punishment for these casual homicides, no political consequence, because none is allowed. So the Northern security forces meticulously adhere to a meticulous law; and Peter Mason spends the rest of his days on this earth in the seventh circle of a silent, sightless hell.