Frank M. Robinson 9 min read

A young blind man on a street corner turns down a stranger's charity, because his blindness is nothing like what the stranger imagines.

Frank M. Robinson's 1951 story is narrated in the wry, defensive voice of a twenty-four-year-old who is not the shabby beggar people expect, hinting at senses beyond the ordinary spectrum. Sharp, character-driven hard SF about perception and difference. Read it for a clever golden-age tale that upends every assumption about what it means to be blind.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

9 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

W. L. Marsh