ONE EYE BLIND
Several nights ago I dreamt that I had lost my right eye. I dreamt it early in the night and then pursued a string of dreams, all loosely connected, and in each dream, each shift of scene and context, the only thing that remained constant was that I was myself and I had lost my eye.
It happened almost by accident. I seem to remember being accidentally raked, or scratched, as if in jest, and feeling a terrific stinging sensation in my face, and then a numbness, an emptiness, and as my mind cleared I slowly realized something had happened. I retraced my steps, and sure enough, there, in the gutter (where? Pittsburgh? some foreign city with dingy streets, cinders along the curb), I found a white blob in an oily shallow puddle on the asphalt, misshapened, more like a milky opalesence, like an imperfect white chocoalte caramel one might find in a Whitman Sampler, wrinkled on top like a prune. It seemed clean and otherwise unscathed, with a spray of optic nerve springing out like a from the night street. I admired it, standing over it, admired it with deep wonder, but when I stoped down to pick it up a stranger running by in the night suddenly splashed along the gutter and stepped on it, splat, and in a dull pucker it flattened, and I knew my history as a bifocal man had abruptly ended. It was then that I reached up for the first time to touch my face, gingerly, tenderly seeking its home, and it was sensitive, an almond-shaped pocket, the lid had somehow closed over the socket hole and formed a smooth fleshy bowl foormed by a thumb. I was not bleeding or ooozing puss or black venous bile, there was no gaping hole in my head leading to my brain, it was as if I'd been born to have this stone fall from its place and heal.
All night I moved from scene to scene, explaining to others what had happened, or lamenting the fact that I was now one-eyed, telling them that the life I once knew, the person I once was, was over. I was a one-eyed man, I had lost something terribly important, my soul, and if they would only look and pay attention for one moment they might put together the fact that I was a bit harried and disoriented--after all, I'd just been seriously, egregiously injured, and they seemed not to care a bit, the whole story caught them off-guard yet even son, disinterested.
All night I seeemd to look for my eye, recognize its absence, explain its occurrence, as if it were the most compelling story I could conjure and each time people seemed to stare at me as if in askance, otherwise preoccupied--not unsympathetic, but freed from any emotion. It was my hole, my lack, my pain, my need to account for my missing eye, and despite my best efforts, northing measured up.
The brutal fact was, I had lost an eye and I must now move on as if unconscious of the impact.
And yet I knew this loss was my soul, a dark star cooling, this was a deep psychic wound, a scar, an emptiness I could never fill.
I woke up as I used to wake up from such painless yet traumatic dreams iny late teens: stunned, scared, cold, resigned, angry, unable to expresss my feeling, my loss. As if the very fact of living meant suffering these kinds of psychic losses, that the self beneath the mask was slowly deteriorating, decaying, losing itself to the world or masks and appearances.
It happened almost by accident. I seem to remember being accidentally raked, or scratched, as if in jest, and feeling a terrific stinging sensation in my face, and then a numbness, an emptiness, and as my mind cleared I slowly realized something had happened. I retraced my steps, and sure enough, there, in the gutter (where? Pittsburgh? some foreign city with dingy streets, cinders along the curb), I found a white blob in an oily shallow puddle on the asphalt, misshapened, more like a milky opalesence, like an imperfect white chocoalte caramel one might find in a Whitman Sampler, wrinkled on top like a prune. It seemed clean and otherwise unscathed, with a spray of optic nerve springing out like a from the night street. I admired it, standing over it, admired it with deep wonder, but when I stoped down to pick it up a stranger running by in the night suddenly splashed along the gutter and stepped on it, splat, and in a dull pucker it flattened, and I knew my history as a bifocal man had abruptly ended. It was then that I reached up for the first time to touch my face, gingerly, tenderly seeking its home, and it was sensitive, an almond-shaped pocket, the lid had somehow closed over the socket hole and formed a smooth fleshy bowl foormed by a thumb. I was not bleeding or ooozing puss or black venous bile, there was no gaping hole in my head leading to my brain, it was as if I'd been born to have this stone fall from its place and heal.
All night I moved from scene to scene, explaining to others what had happened, or lamenting the fact that I was now one-eyed, telling them that the life I once knew, the person I once was, was over. I was a one-eyed man, I had lost something terribly important, my soul, and if they would only look and pay attention for one moment they might put together the fact that I was a bit harried and disoriented--after all, I'd just been seriously, egregiously injured, and they seemed not to care a bit, the whole story caught them off-guard yet even son, disinterested.
All night I seeemd to look for my eye, recognize its absence, explain its occurrence, as if it were the most compelling story I could conjure and each time people seemed to stare at me as if in askance, otherwise preoccupied--not unsympathetic, but freed from any emotion. It was my hole, my lack, my pain, my need to account for my missing eye, and despite my best efforts, northing measured up.
The brutal fact was, I had lost an eye and I must now move on as if unconscious of the impact.
And yet I knew this loss was my soul, a dark star cooling, this was a deep psychic wound, a scar, an emptiness I could never fill.
I woke up as I used to wake up from such painless yet traumatic dreams iny late teens: stunned, scared, cold, resigned, angry, unable to expresss my feeling, my loss. As if the very fact of living meant suffering these kinds of psychic losses, that the self beneath the mask was slowly deteriorating, decaying, losing itself to the world or masks and appearances.
posted by David Martin at 8:01 PM
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