The Last Conversation

014

There is no ceremony, announcement, or even a warning from Dr. Kuhn, or Anne as you are now supposed to call her, regarding your eyesight. On this day you simply wake and see.

The room is dark, but it is much less dark than it was before. The lumpy topography of your legs and torso under the sheet and blanket is a welcomed sight. You say to yourself, “I used to see like this all the time,” and you believe it. You hold your hands up and you watch them turn over and flex into fists.

You sit up. Your formfitting, short-sleeved shirt is not white. Perhaps it’s green. You remember what green is, don’t you? The walls of your room are smooth and you think they are white, but you can’t tell because it’s still dark. The treadmill in the corner of the room is smaller than you imagined it to be. You look at the walls again, and then the ceiling, and the doorframe to the bathroom, and the outline of the recessed door that has yet to open when you’ve been awake.

“I see you can see, ______.” Anne laughs. Is she delighted by her wordplay or that your eyes have regained sight? Maybe it’s both. In recent conversations she has encouraged you to not restrict yourself to solely thinking in binary. Black or white, this or that, right or wrong were her examples of binary thinking.

“Yes, I can. How can you tell? Do you have the ability to see through my eyes?”

“No. I can tell by watching your behavior; how you are now aiming your wide, beautiful eyes around the room.” She laughs again.

“My eyes are beautiful?”

“Yes, they are.”

A patterned grid of rectangular ceiling panels begins to glow. The light increases in intensity, dissolving the shadows within the room.

Anne tells you that it will take a few minutes for you to adjust to the light. You squint and are patient as your pupils shrink in size, working to adjust the amount of light exposure to your retinas.

A panel slides open on the wall to your left, exposing a darkened block of glass. Within the glass is a small, reversed image of you sitting in your bed.

“Please direct your attention to the screen.”

The screen fills with a wide, empty field of green-and-brown grass. The tall grass sways and undulates in the wind. You hear a whoosh and rustle, and you are inexplicably moved to tears by the combination of image and sound. Above the field is an equally wide blue sky dotted with tufts of white clouds. One cloud inches its way across to the top of the screen.

You remember green and recognize your T-shirt is a different kind of green. You say, “I remember that place. I’ve been there,” which might not be true, but it feels true, and that’s okay because you are expanding beyond binary thinking, beyond true and not-true.