Vertigo |
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| - Julie Ann Shapiro | |||
The world spins. Wooden steps below my feet shift. I grab the railing. I need to quell the vertigo. If this is the name for a world spun on its side. I stare at the moon still out, opposite the sun. My feet don’t feel any steadier. I sneeze more and somehow make it to the eye doctor. The doctor’s assistant tells me to press a button when flashing objects come onto the screen. Click, click, click, I think I see them to the left, the right above and below the center. The flickers float and grow wavy. I click more; now falling into the screen. We’re one flickering wave and I’m growing dizzy. Someone asks me to move to another chair and state what rows of letters I can see. Letters go blurry. The rows they sit on move and I know the letters are static. Still, I am memorized, by the ability to see two rows where there is one. I say, “Before I’ve only traveled in one dimension and now I’m in two.” They tell me I’m at the eye doctor, but I know more. I close my eyes. Moments later I open them. The rows of letters are again as one. They tell me to move to the next machine. Air sprays into my eyes. “Don’t blink, don’t blink,” they say. I fall into the chair woozy. Again the world goes spinning with me in the center. They take me by the hand and sit me in front of a reclining chair. I tilt my head back. Drops fall into my eyes. Light filters in and my eyes hurt. They tell me to look at the white light and follow it with my eyes. Everything is framed in fog and I stare all the more at the white light. I here their words, “Follow the green box; keep your focus on the green box.’ I see it; my oz, my wizard. Four green squares separate me from them. I reach for the squares wanting entrance into this land of double where everything I know is now in two. I want to know what its like to see everything twice. Will the meaning of existence be twice as poignant? Will I live my life in parallel and have two paths to choose at a time instead of one? Will I find my double and know everyone really has one, including me? What will we say to each another? I think we’d say, “It’s about time you showed up? I wondered when you’d wake up to the idea, I’m here.” The doctor shakes my chair, “Miss we need you to open your eyes wide. It’s picture time.” I smile. My eyes are open. What secrets will they see? What will I see? Where I am going now? My body is moving and I’m in the chair. Why is everything still spinning? Where are they taking me? They rock my chair, “Miss your retinals are healthy.” The pictures they show me. I see globs of orange, two fiery suns. It’s so bright. They tell me to put on my shades. I walk outside, the light hurts. I stumble on the stairs, back where I started. Well almost…the moon greets me or rather someone glowing all in white does. The voice of the doctor’s assistant I now recognize. She says to me, “Miss, miss are you all right?” I don’t answer. Everything is still foggy. She takes me back to their office where I stretch out on a bed. A few hours
later I find myself in a cup of brown coffee. I drink it, not just one
cup, or two for my double, but three and bolt out of there; thankful I’ve
got a year before the next eye exam.
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