'Easy there,' I said as the technician somewhat roughly pushed the first of my new eagle's eyes into my right, then my left socket. She said nothing, but bedded them, then warned me to not speak as she carefully reached in through the ports in my temple to attach the special curvature-adjusting muscles and connect the extra thick optic nerve she'd threaded through the foramen with the nerve stumps severed when the birth eye was extracted.
Later on, the doctor told me how to care for the visual processing chip embedded in the back of my brain. 'Don't go hitting your head on, say, stove hoods. The chip could detach and we'd have to go back in again, with reduced chances of success. In the meantime, you might find your vision going a little..'
Doreen led me home to wait, bandaged, until the nerve growth factors I swallowed three times a day completed the meld of the bird's neurons with mine. Night after night I sat on the sofa next to her listening to the TV shows she watched, and narrated. She was beautiful when we made love in the darkness. How much more beautiful to the eye, to my new eyes, would she be.
Finally, the day. As the doctor peeled away the bandage, I saw a bar of light growing in intensity left to right till I was blinded in one eye, then right to left in the other. Tears rinsed the raptor corneas as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. So sharp, wow!, this was high definition. Everything detailed and clearly visible: minute stains on the walls, tiny dings in the lighting fixtures, the incipient stubble on the doctor's chin. Over at the mirror, the yellow eyes seemed to shoot out of my face like thrusting rapiers. I could see every finest part of every scar on my face.
'Hey, you look sharp, ' was the doctor's standard punch line; then, 'You'll need to be careful until you adjust. It will be quite a change having eyes five to eight times more acute.'
As I walked out, my vision plunged to the smallest details: the finest hairs in the nostrils of the old man in the waiting room and the peeling skin in the scalp of the old woman, the worn places on the furniture, the flaking paint on the window. Doreen held my arm as I stepped carefully down the short flight of steps. It was hard to focus so close. The mansard-roofed mansion on the other side of the street so rich in particulars: the windows, the locks on the inside of the windows, the dead flies next to the locks, the shingles, the curling edges of the shingles, the chimney needing repointing, the bird on the chimney, the eye on the bird looking now at me: I saw every, every teeny tiny thing.
Turning the other way, beyond the line of trees down the street, the brown hills, every fold, gully, rock and hummock sharp as a tack. And was that something moving? Under that clump of grass?
In the car, it was exhausting seeing everything near and far as we zipped down the road, so I looked at Doreen driving. Beautiful lustrous hair, smooth clear skin. She turned and smiled at me, her teeth shining between her plump lips, oh, those lips. But I couldn't help but see tartar on those teeth and discoloration of her gums. No matter, But the lips were fissured and the lipstick slopping over the edge of the lip line. Her eyebrow hairs were thick as snakes. And her skin, freckled, mottled, speckled. Her nose, I seemed to be able to look into her commodious pores welling with oil. Her neck... Why had I never seen that huge lumpy blackhead before? Ugh.
She gave me another glance and said, 'Don't look at me like that, Phil.'
'Like what?'
'Like you're inspecting me.'
'I'm not, not really. I can't help it.'
'You'll learn.'
We've made accommodation. I've taken to wearing dark dark glasses indoor because everything is dirty and disintegrating, and Doreen not least. What my fingers know as smooth and sleek, my eyes know as rippled, creased, pimpled, multi-colored... I don't want to know. I don't want to see. No!
I spend a lot of my time on the deck outside our bedroom looking at the treetops, the mountain tops, the tops of towering clouds. I run my eyes over the mare of the moon; I see the Milky Way resolve into a cascading river of stars. My eyes have room to roam.
Then I put on my glasses, and go inside to my blunted life.
Later on, the doctor told me how to care for the visual processing chip embedded in the back of my brain. 'Don't go hitting your head on, say, stove hoods. The chip could detach and we'd have to go back in again, with reduced chances of success. In the meantime, you might find your vision going a little..'
Doreen led me home to wait, bandaged, until the nerve growth factors I swallowed three times a day completed the meld of the bird's neurons with mine. Night after night I sat on the sofa next to her listening to the TV shows she watched, and narrated. She was beautiful when we made love in the darkness. How much more beautiful to the eye, to my new eyes, would she be.
Finally, the day. As the doctor peeled away the bandage, I saw a bar of light growing in intensity left to right till I was blinded in one eye, then right to left in the other. Tears rinsed the raptor corneas as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. So sharp, wow!, this was high definition. Everything detailed and clearly visible: minute stains on the walls, tiny dings in the lighting fixtures, the incipient stubble on the doctor's chin. Over at the mirror, the yellow eyes seemed to shoot out of my face like thrusting rapiers. I could see every finest part of every scar on my face.
'Hey, you look sharp, ' was the doctor's standard punch line; then, 'You'll need to be careful until you adjust. It will be quite a change having eyes five to eight times more acute.'
As I walked out, my vision plunged to the smallest details: the finest hairs in the nostrils of the old man in the waiting room and the peeling skin in the scalp of the old woman, the worn places on the furniture, the flaking paint on the window. Doreen held my arm as I stepped carefully down the short flight of steps. It was hard to focus so close. The mansard-roofed mansion on the other side of the street so rich in particulars: the windows, the locks on the inside of the windows, the dead flies next to the locks, the shingles, the curling edges of the shingles, the chimney needing repointing, the bird on the chimney, the eye on the bird looking now at me: I saw every, every teeny tiny thing.
Turning the other way, beyond the line of trees down the street, the brown hills, every fold, gully, rock and hummock sharp as a tack. And was that something moving? Under that clump of grass?
In the car, it was exhausting seeing everything near and far as we zipped down the road, so I looked at Doreen driving. Beautiful lustrous hair, smooth clear skin. She turned and smiled at me, her teeth shining between her plump lips, oh, those lips. But I couldn't help but see tartar on those teeth and discoloration of her gums. No matter, But the lips were fissured and the lipstick slopping over the edge of the lip line. Her eyebrow hairs were thick as snakes. And her skin, freckled, mottled, speckled. Her nose, I seemed to be able to look into her commodious pores welling with oil. Her neck... Why had I never seen that huge lumpy blackhead before? Ugh.
She gave me another glance and said, 'Don't look at me like that, Phil.'
'Like what?'
'Like you're inspecting me.'
'I'm not, not really. I can't help it.'
'You'll learn.'
We've made accommodation. I've taken to wearing dark dark glasses indoor because everything is dirty and disintegrating, and Doreen not least. What my fingers know as smooth and sleek, my eyes know as rippled, creased, pimpled, multi-colored... I don't want to know. I don't want to see. No!
I spend a lot of my time on the deck outside our bedroom looking at the treetops, the mountain tops, the tops of towering clouds. I run my eyes over the mare of the moon; I see the Milky Way resolve into a cascading river of stars. My eyes have room to roam.
Then I put on my glasses, and go inside to my blunted life.
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