A Slit of Light

Who said light can only show? It can blind you, too.

You lie with your eyes held wide open by the speculum, and as the anesthesia takes hold, the cold air of the air conditioner fades away. There is only the glare, and your heart pounding as if you have run for your life.

Badump. Badump.

Your hands rest at your sides, and you try not to move them. The sounds in the room swell. At some point, you realize the speculum has been removed, and you feel the wheels of the bed beneath you begin to roll. You are being taken somewhere.

The noise rises, then recedes.

A nurse in a mask and gloves tries to soothe you with small talk, and you answer mechanically, in a low voice. Then a blue cloth covers your good eye, the one that tracked the waiting room, the corridor, the doors of the operation theatre. Now there is only a slit in the cloth. You are told not to panic. Your hands stay still. You try to hold your breath and calm yourself in this unfamiliar, clinical place, among strangers who begin to gather around you.

You do not see them, but you hear them approach, their presence drawing nearer until they stand right above you, where you lie supine.

You feel exposed and afraid, but still you hold on.

You can feel the click of instruments more than hear it. Voices hum above you, discussing this nerve and that nerve in a language you barely follow, though you hold a master's degree in it.

You hold on.

Shadows of hands move across the blinding light, drawing near, then fleeing, exchanging one instrument for another. Every small sound of their work is magnified, like something half-dreamed, distant and yet so near.

You hold on.

There is numbness, but pain flickers through it, coming and going, as if a part of you has been broken, as if a part of you is stretched so far that you never realized it was connected. You feel the faint trace of liquid draining from you, and some part of you waits for it to end. The light that blinds you and the shadows that move through it seem to wage a quiet war, and slowly the shadows win. The pain arrives.

It comes and goes. Then a voice asks, "Are you okay?"

You tell them about the sting.

"That's normal," you are told.

You hold on.

Minutes that feel like hours pass. The shadows recede until there is only light, and you can make out the outlines of the tube lights. The numbness fades, and a dull throb begins. Then someone says it is over. You feel the weight pressing on the blinded eye.

Vertigo. A deep breath. Then, finally, relief.

You sit up, and only the nurse is beside you, helping you to your feet.

It is over.