"The Persistence of Vision" is a short story by American writer John Varley.
A hitchhiker discovers the town of Keller, a commune whose adult inhabitants are all deafblind.
Unable to cope with this reality, he leaves the commune for the increasingly decrepit outside world.
On New Year's Eve of 2000, he decides to return to Keller, where he discovers the adults have all vanished through some uncommunicable means.
The remaining children have blinded and deafened themselves to remove the obstacles to comprehension, and the narrator soon chooses to join them.