Perfect Vision

David Hutto

Apple of my eye you would be, Emilia, you would be, but I never met you. If I

only dreamed you, I dreamed you as tall, thin but wider in the hips, with straight short

hair, rather pretty, with beautiful deep eyes. Oh, look at those eyes. I’ve dreamed up

something worth losing myself in. Maybe I didn’t dream them at all, maybe I saw them

somewhere, maybe I’m lost already. You could scare me with eyes like that, Emilia,

make me afraid I’d give up even my faint claims of leading a sensible life. Do those eyes

also scare the eye doctor, in his white coat, as he peers into them looking at your retina?

Or does he just ask you to read the line? Z O E C F L D P B T Zombies of Erewhon can

find little Darlene playing behind the… No, that’s not what it means, apple of my eye.

You have too much imagination, I see that. I’ve dreamed you up with too much

imagination, as when you saw the snow begin to fall a few minutes ago and thought

about where all that water had been throughout history. You wondered whether the flake

that landed on your red cheek contained molecules of water that had once been in the

tears of Susan B. Anthony, when she secretly expressed frustration over lack of progress.

Perhaps you don’t think that shows too much imagination, but I do. What about the

snowflake containing molecules that once fell in a drop of rain onto the horse the

Emperor Augustus was riding? And we won’t discuss that molecule that might have

passed through the horse. Who knows where all that water has been?

Dear Emilia, now that you’re here, I realize your birthday was three months ago

and I missed it entirely. If you understood how much fondness I have for you, you would

know that I would have dreamed of you sooner, in order to celebrate those 23 years as

you deserved. As we all deserve, I know you would say that. You think everyone

deserves a good birthday. Kindness is definitely one of your best traits, even if it makes

you a little too prone to be soft. By “soft” I mean the fact that you offered to take a stray

cat that your friend Lisa found and was trying to find a home for. You’re lucky Lisa

decided to keep it. A street cat, a cat that roamed the town at blackest midnight, a cat that

probably committed murders, a cat that may have kept counsel with witches, how would

that stray cat, with possible diseases and surely with fits of feline madness, how would

that cat have gotten along with your own cat, Buttermilk? I’m guessing from the name

that Buttermilk must be a white cat. But read the eyechart, you need to concentrate, this is

your vision at stake here, concentrate and don’t be thinking about the fact that Buttermilk

threw up this morning and seemed very sluggish.

Read that line on the eye chart again. Z O E C F L D P B T. Are you sure you

didn’t just memorize it the first time you read it? You really can read all those letters?

Because you have a good memory, I know that. Z O… Why does it have to start like that,

to make you think of your ex-boyfriend, Zack Olonelli? The last thing you want to think

about this early in the morning, and your cat is sick, and your mind is on the job fair

you’re arranging at the college where you work. But now there’s Zack, with his slightly

wavy black hair, those long eyelashes that you always thought were so pretty, those warm

hands that felt so incredibly good on your body—oh, what he could do with those

hands—and his ability to find and download any song you wanted off the internet, but

also with his wild jealousy that made him seem like the stupidest child on the Planet

Earth, or several other planets for that matter. What was that? The doctor is asking

whether you see better with the first lens or the second lens. The second? Of course when

it came to Zack, you didn’t see clearly at all, poor Emilia. A couple of years ago when

you were still in college in Maryland, and you and Zack took a vacation to the beach,

remember the argument in the motel room because you had that nice conversation with

the guy working at the sno-cone booth? Remember the sour, tainted atmosphere of the

next couple of days? Shouldn’t that vacation have told you something? And it wasn’t the

first time. You were foolish, but even if some people would be critical of you for that,

I’m not one of them. I’m too fond of you to criticize you, and anyway, if we start talking

about foolish behavior with the opposite sex, I might have my own reasons to dislike that

conversation. I don’t want you to criticize me either. In the meantime, do you see better

with the first lens or the second lens? OK, how about now? The first one? And this one?

The more I look at you, Emilia, the more you are coming into focus, with your

pretty eyes. I’m glad you are getting them checked. And the more I look at you, the more

the last few days are coming into focus. Were you sitting on the couch last night with the

light off, holding your cell phone and looking out the window? Because of a message

from Zack. It’s been eight months since you’ve talked to him, and now he calls. No

wonder you thought of him when you saw the letters ZO. I admit at first I thought that

was just your vivid imagination at work, calling him to mind, since ZO could just as

easily stand for Zoo Operator or other things. Though it’s true that sometimes Zack was a

zoo unto himself. I understand why you still haven’t called him back, after that difficult

breakup. Even if you were the one who got tired of his jealous fits and told him it was

over, that didn’t stop the tears running from your eyes for days, the same eyes that are

now reading another line of the chart. E T O L E B Z E F D C. Extracting tryptophan or

lysine, excluding basic zymogens, everybody felt downcast. Ah, I knew you would do

that, make another sentence, and look at the words you’ve used. I’ve heard of tryptophan

and lysine. I don’t know what they are, but I’ve heard of them. But zymogen, that’s

impressive, I’ve never even heard of that word. It is a real word, isn’t it? But look, you’ve

combined two letters in the word “downcast”. You know I’ve thought of what I should

have gotten you for your birthday—a dictionary. It’s not that I think you need a

dictionary, not with your vocabulary. I just think you would like one, a special one

maybe, maybe something with words you don’t usually find. Inscrutable. I think that

word might be there, but oh, you thought of that word because of Zack.

It would be better not to be thinking of him now. It just makes you depressed, and

you begin to think you need to lose 10 or 15 pounds. You won’t take my word for it that

you’re fine as you are, and anyway, don’t you walk every day at lunch in good weather? I

think it’s good that you take walks like that, get away from the desk and refresh the mind.

That’s got to be a demanding job you have at the college, calling or writing to employers

to set up the job fair, or bringing people in to talk about volunteer work, or arranging for

musicians to play at the coffee house every week. Do you meet interesting people doing

this? Sometimes? Well, sometimes is better than never. What about that musician, the

guitar player last March? He was very interesting to talk to, and he even liked some of

your ideas, like the idea that every doctor’s office should have a room where people

could sit and read poetry, to help them get well. I know you don’t tell that to very many

people, for fear that they’ll think it’s a crazy idea.

I have an idea myself. I think every doctor’s office should play soothing classical

music. Doesn’t that sound like a good— No? You don’t like that? How can you not like

that idea? You think it’s a dull idea. Oh ho, you think I have a lack of imagination. Then

I’ll show you my imagination. I saw a man getting on a bus last week—I live in the city

and ride the bus to work—and the man had long dreadlocks, you know what those are,

kind of wild looking hair. He came back and sat down in the seat in front of me, and

while we rode along I was looking at the back of his head, and at the shirt he was

wearing, which was multicolored, I forgot to mention that. And while I was looking at

him I thought that if he was to cut off the dreadlocks and cut his hair very close, and

change his colored shirt for a dark suit, he could look just like the people I worked with.

So that took some imagination, to think like that, didn’t it? Well, I see that you’re not

impressed. I can tell from the look in your eyes. But the eye doctor is asking you to read

another line. B O F C P T… Those are really small letters. It would strain my eyes to read

them. Actually, I do feel a little strain, as if I had read them. Truly, Emilia, I feel like I’m

looking at the chart myself.

You know we have something in common with our jobs. I also work in an office

and make arrangements, but I arrange conferences. I’m very organized, what about you? I

have a good system for…good for…I’m feeling disoriented suddenly. Why did I think I

work in an office? I don’t even live in the city. I live on a ranch and take care of horses,

something I started doing right out of high school. I’ve always loved horses. There’s an

intelligence that horses have, an instinct, but not like an animal instinct, it’s a real

intelligence. Have you ever ridden a horse, Emilia? At summer camp one year? I don’t

know whether that would be enough for you to pick up on what horses are like, but I

can’t imagine not working with horses. But how strange it is that I thought I worked in an

office and lived in a city. That still seems so clear, as if it suddenly changed and I was on

a ranch. And yet I know I’ve always taken care of horses. The kind of horses I took care

of were the same kind you rode at summer camp. Exactly the same. That’s interesting.

Didn’t you ask for a horse one year for your birthday? I’m still wishing I hadn’t

missed your birthday, as I think my own birthday is soon, but it’s… Oh no, I don’t

remember. How is that possible? What is it? February 17. How did you know that? How

did you know that? And I didn’t know it myself. But wait, there’s the eye doctor asking

again. You’d better—Emilia, it’s my eyes he’s looking at, not yours. Well, then, I have to

say that I can definitely see better through the second lens than the first one. Yes, now the

first one is better. And, um, I can’t tell much difference between the two this time. Oh,

now the second one is better.

Even if I wind up having to wear glasses, I’ll deal with it. I’ve always been very

stoic and— No, I’m a hypochondriac about my health, always worrying that I might have

something, a lump here, heartbeat a little too fast. Even when I was a kid I used to walk

around worrying that I could have a heart attack. I was never stoic at all about my health.

This used to drive my girlfriend crazy. It’s not the reason we broke up, but it was one of

the little things that got on her nerves. What? Yes, she was a dental assistant. How did

you know that? I mean, she wasn’t a dental assistant, she was a pediatric nurse. What’s

going on, Emilia? My girlfriend’s name was…was…Melinda! Yes, Melinda. And she

was a paragon of patience with my pretences of pain and pallor. But those are your

words, Emilia, I didn’t say that. I couldn’t say something like that, with all those p words.

It was you who put those words into my head. I still miss Melinda sometimes. It’s not

painful entirely, but I think about her once in a while, about some nice moments, and I

feel a little sad to think it’s gone. I’d like to see her, at least talk to her.

But I just realized Melinda had the same name as one of your cousins. You know,

Melinda is not the most common name in English. My girlfriend’s name was the same as

your cousin, and I took care of the same kind of horses you rode at camp. I wonder if

you’re just making these things up, using bits of your own past to do it. I’ve already seen

how good you are with words, the way you could make up sentences, and even using

words that I don’t know. And you know things about me that I don’t seem to know.

Personal things. Obvious things I should know. How can that be possible, Emilia? And

why do I think I remember some things one way and they suddenly change? I think it’s

because you’re changing them, like the way I worked in a city—and I have such a strong

feeling that I did—and then I was on a ranch. But oh Lord, I feel dizzy again, the ranch

business was never true, either. I’ve worked in a city all along. Emilia? Emilia? You’re

doing this, aren’t you? I didn’t dream you up at all. It’s you that thought of me. You’re

writing things down. No wonder you seemed so good with words before, using words I

don’t know. But isn’t it egotistical of you to make me say that? You’re just praising

yourself.

But wait a moment, I’ve got to answer the eye doctor. No, I can’t read the bottom

line at all. It’s completely blurry. I hope there’s nothing wrong with my vision.

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