Eye of the Beholder

This year, the morning of the Day I Hate the Most started like any other.

Gratitude with a doodle, check.

Breakfast, check.

Feed my girl, check (and empty her litter box).

Fax a picture of my latest canvas over to Maxxine (yes, I said fax), check.

Trip and stumble over everything below waist height, check.

Spend a few precious minutes wrapping gauze on top of the splattering of black and blue on my wrists and ankles, check.

On my way out, I decided not to disturb Misty, who was fighting with her bowl of chow, and opted to call an Uber.

The driver greeted me loudly as I bundled my stuff into his back seat, and I nodded in his general direction, trying to fish my beeping phone from my pocket. Siri reminded me chirpily of my appointment in 19 minutes, so I told my driver I would tip him if he got me to my destination in 10.

I sit still, head back against the leather, enjoying the feeling of the car cruising over broken tarmac and contemplate the rest of my day after this dreaded appointment.

Working for Maxxine Bonnier’s studio was a dream. Even now, I pinch myself, wondering how I managed to be an apprentice for one of the city’s most renowned artists.

I am ashamed to admit that our first meeting was quite unfortunate for her, but quite lucky for me.

I’d accidentally stepped into Maxxine (and her takeaway coffee) that morning. Misty was taking care of business beside a lamppost, but her sudden interest in another dog had catapulted me into the slender figure exiting a parked black tinted Lexus. Instead of trying to clean up the mess I had made, all I could do was watch her dabble helplessly at her blouse, a dark stain blossoming around her chest.

As an inevitable barrage of swear words puffed into her cheeks, all I could stammer was the only thing that came to me in that moment.

“Puce.” Maxxine, or the supposed stranger lady at the time, recoiled when she looked at me.

“I beg your pardon.”

I pointed at her chest, though I realised late that it wasn’t a question, but an apology.

“Your shirt. It’s mainly puce - hex colour A95C68.”

I paused and felt Misty’s lead tug in my hand.

“It’s pretty - or - it was pretty - until I…”

I trailed off because I could sense I was getting that look, so I started to prepare my rehearsed spiel. There was a very long pause, and I could tell Maxxine was taking me in: thick glasses, dishevelled, dressed in a holey sweatshirt despite the heat, acrylic paint under her fingernails, but young and spunky.

Then she rapped the window of the Lexus and opened the very door she had just stepped out of, and reached out her hand for me to duck inside.

And now, two years on, not only was I on Maxxine’s pay roster (just an basic assistant for now, but she often critics some of my art in her spare time), I was also one of the newest additions to the tight and elite Creatives Circle; only a Bonnier recommendation could have got me into such a position in such a short space of time.

Circle club members (limited to 30 at a time) meet on the last Friday of each month at Bonnier’s studio to showcase their newest pieces to like-minded peers. The submitted artwork is suspended from the ceiling in winding lines, offering members and their plus ones a chance to wander between the pieces and champagne stations at their own pace.

At the end of the trail, attendees anonymously provide feedback to each artist; a third party collects and distributes the feedback the following day by courier. Effectively, if a member received enough vitriol for their work, their membership was revoked. It was rare, but it could happen - I should know; I was the chosen replacement for the ousted individual at the June meet.

My ride took 12 minutes in July heat, and the driver dropped me opposite the memorial bench as usual, as per request. My phone ker-ching-ed as I sent my digital thanks, and planted both feet onto the storm drain just off the pavement. The metallic rattle gave me confidence to pick up speed and head straight up the side ramp and into the clinic reception area, where Dr Bronson was already waiting to usher me into the examination room.

Dr Archibald Bronson spent most of his week doing what most people look forward to doing on the weekend: golfing with his alma mater pals, and island-hopping around the Mediterranean with his wife, Mallory. However, other people didn’t find themselves back in the clinic they worked in for 28 years once a year, as that tended to be a benefit of retirement.

Bronson has seen me yearly since I was 7 years old. The first year was a treat - a whole day off from school just to visit the optician, staring through a phoropter and purposely misquoting crystal-clear letters, while fighting the urge to smile once invited to stand in the foyer and try on an array of multicoloured glasses (like all the other girls in my class).

Just a minor short-sightedness, a then newly qualified Bronson had reassured my mother, 'nothing to worry about; most children her age find they don’t need glasses in a few years.”

Dad thought I looked brilliant with my new pink plastic frames, but Mum just muttered something about the “blooming cheek for charging so much for a piece of glass.”

Being a millennial meant that I still enjoyed my free time outside the house rather than being another pacified Gen Alpha iPad kid.

I spent hours in Dad’s shed. Once deployed in the Gulf War, he retrained as a decorator after losing his left arm due to complications from nerve damage. His strong right hand always did the majority of the work, but he refused to get a prosthetic for his left.

He let me go crazy with his old paint cans and brushes on the back of old bits of wallpaper. He always chose to use his stump to paint with me. I used to giggle at his obscure attempts, but he would gently hush me, insisting that the outcome may not have looked grand to anyone else, but it was a beauty to the one who had drawn it.

My glasses mainly helped me to read and watch TV, so I still made time for my favourite shows after school.

But everyone knows that line, and it very quickly became Mum’s catchphrase, much to mine and Dad’s chagrin.

It hung like dribble on her lips as I dashed past her post after-school club and raced into the TV room, diving down underneath the Sky box.

“Clarissa, if you sit that close to the TV, you’ll get bad eyes - you wanna be Miss Square Eyes?” she’d yell as I’d instinctively shift ever so slightly backwards. I hated her whining and the name-calling. Eventually, even she got bored with the repetition; one day, I found a browning piece of masking tape clinging to the carpet, marking a boundary line a meter away from the TV.

However, despite Mum’s best efforts, year after year, my eyesight would get worse. Of course, we all knew it had nothing to do with a screen, but by high school, all the girls in my class were lens-free, yet mine were getting thicker and thicker, my prescriptions uncharted.

Bronson had supposedly signed my last prescription at my 22nd check-up. Still, as an ophthalmology veteran, he was called back urgently the following year to assist with my alarming and mystifying case.

“Clarissa”, he greets me now, obviously noticing my fingers clench in my lap, “and how are we doing?”

I wanted to lie.

I wanted to do the same thing I used to as a child and pretend. I felt a fresh wave of pain over my sore bruises. I rubbed them thoughtfully and glanced at the one-of-a-kind phoropter waiting in the corner. Bronson told me it was custom-built abroad.

Something new is happening to me.

Granted, my eyesight without help was a mess. My eyeglasses helped, but in the last few months, I'd noticed that my peripheral vision had sharpened; in fact, it was as if things were morphing into uniform, straighter, sharper lines.

“Not good”, I admit and absent-mindedly snap my white walking cane down into its four short pieces, “I think my range is getting worse- I keep injuring myself.”

The shape of Bronson shifts, and he wheelwalks his way on his chair towards me.

“Sorry to hear,” he sighs, “you still have Misty, don’t you? Does having her at the studio help?”

My lips twist in frustration.

Bronson means well, of course- he has known me my whole life.

He knows how much the world of art means to me; the ability to create and tell a story with different modes and colours. I am naturally gifted; apparently, I have an eye for beautiful composition. However, he also knows my struggle to accept my prognosis and the deterioration of my independence, identity, and, of course, my artistry.

Having a dog in a small studio space isn’t convenient, and whilst Maxxine is darling about the whole thing, her more senior minions fail to hide their exasperation as they trip over the golden lab retriever trying to hide herself beneath my desk stool.

Bronson accepts my silence as permission to move on, and he proceeds to wipe down the chin bracket on the machine, built especially for me, that is likely to destroy the rest of my day, or my life.

*

2022 was a challenging year. I spent most of it between airports and clinics, flying across the world to specialists and leaders in the field of ophthalmology, who scratched their heads at my baffling case. They agreed years ago that I did not have high myopia, corneal abrasions or floaters.

That year, they also ruled out Palinopsia, and there was a consensus that the closest condition that matched what I was experiencing was kaleidoscope vision; however, my MRIs were all clear for signs of stroke or brain injury.

I was the medical wonder that sent research teams into a frenzy. I was discharged back to my local clinic for check-ups and care under the agreement that the US team could study my yearly progress to help find a cure or at least an answer.

For now, Bronson has casually labelled my condition "Square Eyes."

Yes, Square Eyes: because I literally see things at the edge of my vision as squares, or pixels to be exact. And I am currently the only one in the world who suffers with it.

See, now look what you have become! I tried to warn you, Mum sobbed when I called to tell her the news.

Even in all of the seriousness, she couldn’t help herself.

People living with myopia describe things as soft and fuzzy. I also struggle to make out intricate details of far-off objects, but I see very distinct squares of colour at the corners of my vision, turning everything into 8-bit works of art.

The only aids available to me have been the usual ones for poor vision or blindness: custom eyeglasses that are modified annually, a guide dog, and walking aids.

But, in the three years since, as I patiently wait for a solution, I have had the chance to see the immeasurable benefits: what my eyes present to me is truly stunning to behold.

I have become a walking colour picker, able to identify exact shades across the spectrum and translate them into HTML colour codes for my work.

I notice the ignored parts of society: darkened alleys in the twilight, overflowing trash cans, and appreciate the vibrant variety of hues nature has to offer.

I try to depict this strange pixellation on my canvases; the centres are usually soft and dreamy, but this fades into brash and harsh, towards the sides. It's an acquired taste, but then, isn’t all art that hangs on the wall of any gallery?

Dad gives me his “stump of approval” for every piece - he roars with laughter at his genius, his eyes dancing over the splatters and brushstrokes during our FaceTime calls. Thankfully, he refrains from telling me Mum would be pleased for me. I try not to admit that her death loosened rivulets of resentment I didn't realise I had.

Despite her many accolades, Maxxine cooes in adoration as she watches me work and proudly proclaims me as her protege to anyone who will listen.

Sadly, though, my condition’s unpredictability means that one day, the pixels could crowd my vision entirely and I could lose my sight altogether.

And today was the day I was given the news I had been waiting for.

*

I call Dad the moment I get home.

“Oh Lord, it’s not some kind of hippie medical trial, is it?” Dad groaned on the other end of the line.

“Dad, please. They aren’t clinical cowboys, you know this already. Anyway, it’s a little more involved than that.”

“What does that mean?”

I spin around on my barstool as I hear the fax machine spluttering. Before I can react, I hear a cacophony of nails scratching on the tiles, and a warm sheet of paper floats into my lap. I throw a nibble in Misty’s direction.

“It’s more invasive,” I explain, and I proceed to tell my father about the proposal Bronson relayed to me after he patched us into a call with colleagues stateside.

The changes to my sight in just one year are unprecedented - the US team no longer believes providing a new yearly prescription is viable, but thinks there is a way through surgery to restore my sight, not to 20/20, but to at least remove the unique pixellation. It’s a risky endeavour, but it would be a world first if successful.

“So what do you think?” I chatter excitedly.

Dad gulps.

“But you don’t know if you really will end up losing your sight. And is it really that bad?”

I sit up straight and re-adjust my glasses—another gulp from Dad.

“Remember when I got my stump? Your Mum had a right face on her when I told her I didn’t want a prosthetic,” he laughs. I join in.

“But,” Dad picks up, “I didn’t let it get me down. I didn’t lose anything in that war but my ungratefulness for life. But I gained a shot at seeing goodness in disguise.”

I huff.

“You're talking in riddles. What are you trying to say?”

Dad huffs back, and I hear something on his body creak, likely his knee.

Whilst he pauses to consider his following words, I flip the paper over in my hand. It’s obviously from Maxxine, and I hope she will only suggest some minor amendments to my latest piece, the one I am confident should be my very first Creative Circle showpiece.

“You’re literally one in a million, Rissy,” Dad says eventually, “don’t see your difference as a disability or a weakness and lose your chance to show the world what only you can see- why would you want to throw that away?”

I cut the phone because I didn't want him to hear me crying. I was too busy feeling the weight of dread crush my lungs as I read Maxxine’s curt recommendation.

*

A month later, Misty and I sit in the back of Dad’s car on the way to the airport, and the silence is palpable.

Dad opens my passenger door and helps me onto the pavement outside Departures, pressing my white stick into my hand. It clicks into place - a comforting sound. My luggage has already been hoisted onto a trolley and taken inside- the Special Assistance employee will be back shortly to help me navigate through security and then to my gate.

I gaze up at my father with a small smile. It is always difficult to say goodbye before one of my long trips abroad.

“Call me when you land,” he sniffs, eyes wet. I feel a rush of heat knowing that he is proud of me.

-

My first Creative Circle meet had gone exactly as I thought it would.

I’d read Maxxine’s feedback. She’d told me, coldly condescending, that while she adored my quirk, she feared I was not up to Circle standards, and submitting art would not only be the wrong idea but would reflect poorly on her.

Whilst I shed a tear for a relationship I had once idolised, I’d called my Dad over and he’d hand-delivered Prism, my supposedly unhinged and uncouth submission, to the studio’s events manager, whilst I drafted my resignation letter.

The ominous Circle gold envelope arrived promptly on my doormat the following afternoon.

Dad had laughed that I should have got a plaque or something to celebrate my embarrassingly short membership.

In the airport lounge, I beam at the selfie of me and the Bronsons in their suburban estate.

Prism had ended up over their fireplace - apparently, Mallory just had to have it. The check she wrote easily funded my one-way ticket to the States and then some.

As we watched Archie adjust its frame, Mallory was surprised to hear that I would not be accepting the offer of surgery, but would gladly visit the research facilities when requested. In the meantime, I told her I planned to freelance and make the most of a new environment.

We clinked glasses, and I noticed that my new artist name signature, scrawled at the bottom corner of the canvas, was not lost on them: Square Eyes.

I knew I had finally settled on becoming and remaining the thing I had always hated, but I now choose to see my world a little differently, to shift my perspective and desire to behold my eyes as something beautiful.