Perfect Sight Without Vision

by ELIZABETH HULL FROMAN

NOBODY knows the trouble I’ve seen — and I mean that quite literally. My difficulties began when I agreed to let my oculist affix a large and intricate bandage to my right eye. The idea was to force my left eye, happily lying fallow until that time, to focus properly. It would take only three months, he said.

At first my energy was devoted to outwitting stairs and curbs — they all looked flat — and to preparing suitable responses to the inevitable question, “What’s wrong with your eye?”

For a while I answered, “It keeps falling out.”

Then I switched to a terse “Indians.”

Finally, however, I settled on “I keep thinking it’s Tuesday.”

As soon as these pressing problems had been dealt with, I turned, not without apprehension, to my daily newspaper. There I found that everything below the top headline was one large uninterrupted blur, and that the headlines themselves could be deciphered only with painstaking effort.

Well I remember the feeling of triumph attendant upon my first attempt. “String Beans Replace Money” I slowly spelled out. Triumph rapidly was replaced by excitement as the meaning of the words sank in. In a frenzy I headed for the phone to order a carload of string bean seeds. Something stopped me though, and I phoned a friend for verification of this remarkable bit of news. Yes, she said, she had the same paper, but the headline was concerned with a railroad strike. I returned to my paper, tried the same line again, and emerged with “Strict Linoleum Diet Urged.”

At least, I thought, I’ll never get bored reading the same headline.

This bewildering state of affairs continued. I’d read “Rhode Island Declares War on New York,” furiously start preparations to flee the city, and then remember. Or I’d happily set out to buy one of those lovely new cars advertised for $30 — and then remember.

As my eye improved, I was able to progress to t he subheads, and my fund of misinformation increased enormously. In the course of one morning’s careful gleaning, I learned, among other things, that goats with detachable heads were back on the market, warm bread should be worn on the knees al all times, and the recipe of the week had as its main ingredients bayonets, twigs, and parachutes.

I treasured my store of facts, and eagerly searched for more each day. Indeed, I secretly dreaded the day that all this would be taken from me, the day that my eye would become normal and see what really was to be seen.

Imagine giving up “Fudge Strengthens Teeth" for “Judge Sentences Three.”

Or “Hubcaps Revel in Gin” for “Subway Repairs Begin.”

Who could prefer “United Nations Sessions Convene” to “Oblique Native Lemons Collect”?

But I had to leave my enchanted world. Reluctantly I returned to my doctor, fell up his steps, took one last regretful look at his magazine titles — Keyhole Grandeur and Styx — and the bandage was removed.

Thorough examination showed that my right eye was as good as ever, my left 400 per cent improved — science had triumphed again. Muttering ungraciously to the doctor, I left, wearily bought a paper, and prepared to read my first real headline in three months.

“Bill to Clean Up Pollution on President’s Desk" I read. It took a minute, but I figured it out.