do you think I should do?’
‘Well, everyone is different,’ I said to her. ‘But I usually suggest getting them both done together. It’s strange enough adjusting to your new vision without having your other eye lose sight at the same time. Better to stay in darkness and start seeing with IDRoPS than trying to adjust to two completely different kinds of focus at the same time.’
I put down the syringe, and picked up another one. Very carefully, I removed the cap, and pushed the liquid right to the tip of the needle. I couldn’t let any spill, but this was something I was used to.
‘I’m feeling a little panicky, but less than before,’ she said, and I watched her front teeth dig back into her lip.
‘Then you don’t want to be taking in two different loads of information at the same time. I’d suggest that you let me do the other eye now.’
‘Okay,’ she said, and moved her hands back to the side of the chair.
‘Is this a bad time to mention that you’re only my second patient?’
Her eyes widened. ‘What?’
‘I’m joking,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I couldn’t resist.’
‘Jesus. You had me going there.’ I couldn’t quite tell if she was amused or annoyed, or both.
‘You’re my third.’
‘You’re joking again, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. You’re my fourth. Now, this is going to feel just the same as the first one, but you’re going to be anticipating it differently now, so I want you to take a few deep breaths, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay,’ I said, and pushed the needle slowly against her right eye.
I remembered what it was like when it was done to me. The single point of view as the vision from your remaining working eye is filled with a needle moving towards it.
Every natural part of your psyche wants to react. You want to pull back, or even attack the person doing it, but you know why you’re here, so you try to relax instead, while the tip of the needle gets bigger and bigger and the person behind it, the person looking at you and pushing that needle, gets more and more out of focus until the world goes black.
And your point of view changes for ever.
‘This is going to be fine, Sarah. Don’t worry, I promise.’
The needle pushed against the fibrous tunic surrounding her eye, pushing it gently inwards against the point, until it finally yielded and allowed the needle access underneath. I felt the gentle tearing of the cornea as I pushed through to the vitreous jelly underneath.
I remembered that tearing when it was done to me, and the panic and nausea I felt rising in my gut. I’d only ever had two patients ever actually throw up while I was doing this procedure, thankfully. One of them had been a teenage girl and she’d covered both of our fronts in her recently digested meal. She’d been one of the only patients I’d ever had that had actually cried during the procedure as well, but once it started, it had to be finished.
I pushed the plunger downwards slowly and smoothly once again, as the IDRoPS liquid inside wriggled free and began to fill her eye.
‘Is it feeling okay?’ I asked her.
‘It feels like curtains closing,’ she said. ‘It feels like I’m looking at a huge stage, and the curtains are dropping between acts.’
I smiled. ‘I like that way of describing it.’
‘Will it be as good as I’ve heard?’ She asked. ‘Will it be as good as everyone says?’
‘Sarah, if the curtain just came down at the end of the first act, then the second act is going to be entirely revelatory, just you wait.’
She smiled and began to laugh. ‘It’ll be worth it, then? Oh God, I can’t see. I can’t see. This is really weird. Is this okay?’ Her voice cracked, and her knuckles went even whiter than before. She was becoming hysterical.
This was okay, though. The procedure was almost finished. As long as she gave me time to finish it, this would have actually gone pretty smoothly.
‘It’s more than okay. The second act is just beginning, and I promise you, Sarah......’
‘What?’
I dropped my voice and whispered to her as gently and as calmly as I could.
‘… you ain’t seen nothing yet.’
My name is John MacFarlane. I am a forty-seven year old optometrist. I actually tend to think of myself as an optomist, due to the fact that I have always had a weakness for bad puns.
I have been married for the last seven years to a wonderful woman called Rachel. We met eleven years ago, after I recovered from a very difficult period in my life, and we have an eight-year-old daughter called Natalie. I started studying when I met Rachel, and quickly excelled at optometry, and ended up helping to lead the research into improving it.
I was born near the start of the century. I don’t feel very old when I think about the fact that my parents were born in the twentieth century, but it’s something that Natalie consistently finds amazing. It seems unfeasibly old to her.
‘They watched Clinton get into office,’ she said to me as I tucked her into bed. ‘CLINTON. That’s insane.’
‘I remember Clinton,’ I said to her, sitting down on the bed in front of her. ‘I liked Clinton.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t remember him as president, do you?’
‘No, but he was around as an ex-President. And he seemed pretty cool back then.’
‘You’re old.’
‘I’m not old.’
‘You’re old. And stupid.’
‘You’re young and annoying,’ I said, smiling.
‘You’re so old, you remember Clinton. How are you not dead?’
‘It’s a mystery to me.’
‘You probably remember cavemen. Were Granny and Grandad cavemen?’
‘They were not cavemen.’
‘Are you sure? Had they discovered fire when you were little?’
‘I am not old.’
‘It must have been difficult growing up before fire.’
‘It was very difficult. Before we had fire, we would have had no way of burning someone as annoying as you at the stake.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Burning at the stake. It’s what they used to do to witches.’
‘Why did they do that?’
‘They thought they were evil.’
She gasped. ‘That’s awful!’
‘It was very awful,’ I agreed. ‘And they did it for a long time.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, this was back in Britain, and they used to have something called a witchfinder general and he would find out if someone was a witch.’
‘How would he find out?’ Her eyes were open wide, and staring at me. I loved the way she would do that. There was no pretence over something she didn’t know. Only questions and assumptions that I knew the answers. I hoped