The trouble with eyes
When we were younger my sister and I played on this empty lot in front of our house. Because this is the Philippines, or at least Baguio, "empty lot" translates to an unpaved space less than forty square feet. You wouldn't call it a "playground," because only people who can afford three pairs of shoes for their children do that, and certainly would not allow their children near that lot. Even when I was in a private grade school I rarely refer to my school's playground as "playground" - I and my classmates just manage to see each other after dismissal there without problematizing what it's called, and then proceed to systematically destroy our uniforms with the games we play.
That empty lot held a lot of promise, especially for children, who will always think dirt is the most awesome thing there is. I mean, it had everything: the aforementioned awesome dirt, patches of grass in which coins and small things always land and disappear, a view of the sky and the surrounding mountains, a clothesline made of barbed wire, the works.
Once my sister played there alone, having left me to nap. It occurs to me presently that it's quite unfair that I napped a lot and still consistently manage to be almost 3 inches shorter than my sister. I must have napped for about an hour until I heard a small, crying sound. We Filipinos put that sound perfectly, since it's neither a sob nor a wail - it's a "hu hu hu hu." And then I heard it again. When I finally opened my eyes I saw my sister hovering over the bed, covering her right eye, and still crying, presumably with the left. She told me her right eye just snagged on the barbed wire clothesline, while she was jumping about the lot, presumably to make herself taller. I don't remember what I did then, perhaps I doused her face with alcohol or water. She sports a small scar of that snag today, just on the lid of her right eye, less than an inch from the eyeball.
Fast forward to several years later when we were teenagers and my family and I went to our aunt's house. It was, like that parking lot, full of promise: the overpopulation of my aunt's knicknacks, my uncle's meticulously tended garden replete with meticulously fat caterpillars, my older cousins' cool stuff: discarded watches, tools, toys, what looks to be an inhaler complete with a red button on top of it. Because I was young and therefore stupid, I pressed the red button. A stream of liquid came out in a beautiful arc, straight to my sister's left eye, which she then clutched while shouting in pain. This bought my father and mother running to the room, and I was presumably stupidly standing there still wondering what that liquid was and why the inhaler had Japanese or Chinese printing on it. My parents were still asking what happened, watching my sister's tears flow from her right eye, the one with the scar on it, when I figured I can run to the ref and fetch ice. I did, my father plonked it on my sister's face, and they proceeded to take her to the hospital. It turned out that what I squirted her eye with was pepper spray. When they came home I sprang up to meet them at the door, and it was only then I realized the glaring prowess concentrated to one eye as opposed to two - my sister sported a bandaged left eye for a week. Had we thought eye patches were cool, she would have worn one, but getting it on would've involved talking to me, so she stuck with the bandage.
Fast forward, again, to the time of my sister's husband's basketball game. I wasn't there, so I just heard he got his right eye smacked by an elbow. It needed stitches, so stitch it they did, with the kind of thread that melts while you're healing. So my sister and her husband each have a scarred right eyelid. They also have the same basketball uniform number from the time they were both university varsitarians in schools 50 kilometres apart, but that's just coincidence. The eyelid scar was kismet at work.
Fast forward to when their son, my nephew, was ten. Or eleven. Aunts, I'm sure you know, have fantastic memory for embarrassing detail, but not for ages. Anyway. While my nephew was playing with his friends by the river, which I think is like that vacant lot - full of promise - they decided to catch fish with makeshift rods, using real fisherman's hooks - the kind that has a hook for a body and an opposite hook at the end, so the fish might fully enjoy the experience of being fished. See, full of promise. So one of them started casting his stick rod, fishing my nephew's face in the process. The hook got stuck in between his eyes, the part of the nose which can't quite decide whether to stay flat or to rise. In his case, it rose when he was about five, so he was spared having his left eye fished the heck out of his face. Again, I wasn't there, but I was privy to about four pictures of him having a hook on his face, which the brilliant doctor took thirty minutes to take out. After shaking it. And breaking a pair of scissors trying to cut it. This, a few months after that same nephew got whacked by a branch held by one of his other playmates on - you guessed it, his face. Just below his left eye.
So it seems the trouble with eyes, or at least those of my sister's family's, is that they're always in the way of stuff.
That empty lot held a lot of promise, especially for children, who will always think dirt is the most awesome thing there is. I mean, it had everything: the aforementioned awesome dirt, patches of grass in which coins and small things always land and disappear, a view of the sky and the surrounding mountains, a clothesline made of barbed wire, the works.
Once my sister played there alone, having left me to nap. It occurs to me presently that it's quite unfair that I napped a lot and still consistently manage to be almost 3 inches shorter than my sister. I must have napped for about an hour until I heard a small, crying sound. We Filipinos put that sound perfectly, since it's neither a sob nor a wail - it's a "hu hu hu hu." And then I heard it again. When I finally opened my eyes I saw my sister hovering over the bed, covering her right eye, and still crying, presumably with the left. She told me her right eye just snagged on the barbed wire clothesline, while she was jumping about the lot, presumably to make herself taller. I don't remember what I did then, perhaps I doused her face with alcohol or water. She sports a small scar of that snag today, just on the lid of her right eye, less than an inch from the eyeball.
Fast forward to several years later when we were teenagers and my family and I went to our aunt's house. It was, like that parking lot, full of promise: the overpopulation of my aunt's knicknacks, my uncle's meticulously tended garden replete with meticulously fat caterpillars, my older cousins' cool stuff: discarded watches, tools, toys, what looks to be an inhaler complete with a red button on top of it. Because I was young and therefore stupid, I pressed the red button. A stream of liquid came out in a beautiful arc, straight to my sister's left eye, which she then clutched while shouting in pain. This bought my father and mother running to the room, and I was presumably stupidly standing there still wondering what that liquid was and why the inhaler had Japanese or Chinese printing on it. My parents were still asking what happened, watching my sister's tears flow from her right eye, the one with the scar on it, when I figured I can run to the ref and fetch ice. I did, my father plonked it on my sister's face, and they proceeded to take her to the hospital. It turned out that what I squirted her eye with was pepper spray. When they came home I sprang up to meet them at the door, and it was only then I realized the glaring prowess concentrated to one eye as opposed to two - my sister sported a bandaged left eye for a week. Had we thought eye patches were cool, she would have worn one, but getting it on would've involved talking to me, so she stuck with the bandage.
Fast forward, again, to the time of my sister's husband's basketball game. I wasn't there, so I just heard he got his right eye smacked by an elbow. It needed stitches, so stitch it they did, with the kind of thread that melts while you're healing. So my sister and her husband each have a scarred right eyelid. They also have the same basketball uniform number from the time they were both university varsitarians in schools 50 kilometres apart, but that's just coincidence. The eyelid scar was kismet at work.
Fast forward to when their son, my nephew, was ten. Or eleven. Aunts, I'm sure you know, have fantastic memory for embarrassing detail, but not for ages. Anyway. While my nephew was playing with his friends by the river, which I think is like that vacant lot - full of promise - they decided to catch fish with makeshift rods, using real fisherman's hooks - the kind that has a hook for a body and an opposite hook at the end, so the fish might fully enjoy the experience of being fished. See, full of promise. So one of them started casting his stick rod, fishing my nephew's face in the process. The hook got stuck in between his eyes, the part of the nose which can't quite decide whether to stay flat or to rise. In his case, it rose when he was about five, so he was spared having his left eye fished the heck out of his face. Again, I wasn't there, but I was privy to about four pictures of him having a hook on his face, which the brilliant doctor took thirty minutes to take out. After shaking it. And breaking a pair of scissors trying to cut it. This, a few months after that same nephew got whacked by a branch held by one of his other playmates on - you guessed it, his face. Just below his left eye.
So it seems the trouble with eyes, or at least those of my sister's family's, is that they're always in the way of stuff.
As a person who treasures his eyes and eyesight a lot, these stories made me nervous. They also remind me of my cousin, who, as a little girl, fell into a tub of boiling bathwater (her mom was gonna add cold water to it but was a few seconds late). This bath resulted in scars across her back. Fastforward to when this same cousin had a little boy of her own. He fell into that same tub containing hot water. Again, scars.
ReplyDeleteStupid cosmos with its cosmic vibes. Good thing it wasn't hot water on the eyes.
ReplyDelete