Chapter 36 – Sight
Academics were unusual, if you asked me. Academicians, similarly, were all oddballs. And the reason I said so was because within forty-eight hours of me receiving the news of my impending blindness, I received a letter from a prominent medical academician regarding my participation in a research project of his.
"So he's an eye doctor?" I asked Mary the receptionist, as she leafed through the military-issue yellow pages in an attempt to locate the doctor's phone number.
With a nod, she continued flipping the pages. "Yes, and I believe the proper term is 'ophthalmologist'. Ah, there it is – ophthalmology. I'll just write it down for you, then."
I was squinting a little as I tried to read the number on the page, and shook my head out of frustration when I realised that the font, once something I could read with ease, was now little more than a blurry squiggle. So it seemed that General Harding's claim that I'd be needing glasses soon weren't completely unwarranted, after all.
Briefly, the image of me in the doctor's office during the physical I'd been given prior to joining the army flashed through my mind. There had been a few eye tests back then, too. My gut started warming up for the ballet when I recalled that bad eyesight was grounds for dismissal from the military.
"And here you go!" Mary said cheerily, snapping me out of my reverie. "Doctor Harada's contact details, and I'd advise you to book an appointment first."
I mumbled my thanks, and headed towards the public telephones next to the cafeteria.
xxx
It wasn't difficult to book an appointment with Doctor Harada, and so I found myself sitting in a large, squashy, and rather comfortable couch outside his office just two days after calling him up. As I sat waiting for his secretary to retrieve my files and deliver them to him, I mulled over the three things that had grabbed my attention when I'd stepped foot into the waiting area outside his office.
The first had been the sheer emptiness of the room. Aside from the couch, there wasn't even a coffee table with magazines on it, as was the norm for most clinics. The walls were devoid of posters or notices of any sort, and it seemed to me that every flat surface in the room had been painted the same shade of light blue.
Then there had been the transparisteel barrier between the secretary's cubicle and the waiting area. Given that I usually only saw such barriers in banks – which was easily attributed to their bulletproof nature – this was indeed something unusual.
And of course, there was the secretary herself. She was a tall woman who looked neat enough and carried herself in a manner that suggested she'd be right at home in the corporate world, but the foggy blue colour of her eyes gave everything away once I'd seen them. A glance at the computer inside her cubicle revealed that her keyboard and filing cabinets were all marked with Braille symbols, to boot.
Really, who would've thought that a blind woman could be a secretary for a doctor?
"Doctor Harada will see you now," she said, as she passed a few sheets of paper through a rectangular hole in the wall, which presumably led to the doctor's office. "Don't mind his appearance, though; he hasn't been too well of late."
"Thanks," I nodded, getting up and crossing the room to the door with a plaque on it, which simply read 'Koyanagi Karada, M.D., MS'.
Through the door, I heard what sounded suspiciously like the buzzing of a bee, followed by a soft, "Come in."
I opened the door, and entered the office. "Good morning-"
Once more, I found myself distracted by something out of the ordinary. This time, it was the two pokemon – a mothim and a venomoth - that were perched on top of a bookshelf in the room. Of all the things I'd expected to see in a doctor's office, large bugs were definitely not high on the list.
"Ah, I see you've noticed Fujiko and Fujio," said a kindly voice from somewhere to my left. "Don't mind them."
I turned to look at the doctor, and my jaw just about hit the floor when I saw that he was, just like his secretary, blind; his eyes were both as white as hard-boiled eggs. Aside from the fact that he was wearing a white doctor's coat, he could have passed for your typical blind man from Japan, or something like that.
"Wait, you perform surgery, and you're blind?" I blurted out, feeling more than a little uneasy at the thought of a blind surgeon.
He waved a hand dismissively. "Not so much anymore, child. The most I do is consulting in the operation theatre. Who in their right mind would license a blind man for surgery, really?"
At least that much made sense. It still didn't explain the television screen next to his desk, though.
"But that's not to say I don't examine patients and do research! Come, take a seat at that machine there, and I'll take a look at your eyes."
"But how-" I began, only to be cut-off by him getting out of his seat and crossing the room towards a machine that resembled a sort of oversized microscope.
"Just take a seat, and relax. Head in the headrest, please," he said, flipping a few switches on the wall next to the machine, causing the television screen beside his desk to come to life with a smooth hum. "Quickly, now."
Hesitantly, I sat down in the seat he'd pointed out, and placed my head in the headrest. Without missing a beat, he adjusted the height of the headrest until I was at eye-level with the shiny lenses of his machine, and seated himself at the machine's controls.
"Now, I'm just going to examine the outside of your eyes, and then I'll check the inside of your eyes with this lens," he said, holding up a small, coin-sized lens he'd apparently whipped out of thin air. "And don't mind my two partners – they'll be assisting me during the examination."
For a moment, I rolled my eyes to look at his pokemon, and saw that they'd positioned themselves right in front of the TV, and were watching it intently. The image on the screen was blurry, though.
"Look straight at me, please."
Reluctantly, I did so, and he started the eye test. Surprisingly, it wasn't painful at all, save for the glare from the machine's obscenely bright lights. And for a blind man, Doctor Harada still managed to carry out the examination in a confident, relaxed manner. How he managed to get anything out of the examination was beyond me, though – I might not have had a medical degree, but you needed eyes to look through a lens, right?
It took all of fifteen minutes for him to complete his tests, and he switched off the machine with a sigh. "As expected. Take a seat at my desk, and I'll explain everything."
Moving over to the seat in front of his desk, I saw that the screen there had gone black. However, once he took his seat behind his desk, he picked up a remote, and pressed a button that made it come to life again. This time, there was an image of an eye there, along with several words that I couldn't make sense of.
"Fujiko, do you mind? Ah, much better," he said, as his venomoth flitted down to look at the screen once more. "Now, young man, that is your right eye, as evidenced by the 'OD' on the top right of the screen."
I leaned in to get a closer look at the screen, and sure enough, it was as he said.
"On the outside, both of your eyes are fine. The nerve layers inside, however, are a different story altogether."
The image changed to that of a pinkish ribbon highlighted against a blurred black background. Small reddish lines were visible within the strip, along with a bright yellow disc of light somewhere near the middle of the pink area.
"Notice that the yellowish area seems very bright, and if you look closer, you'd see that the little red lines on the yellow are all skirting its edges. Go on, take a look," he went on, leaning back in his seat.
Once again, it was just as he'd said, and not for the first time, I wondered how he was able to see all that.
As I was leaning back in my seat, I saw his venomoth's eyes flashing with a purplish light, and a thought struck me. "Are you using your pokemon to see, somehow?"
He nodded, and offered me a smile, even as he raised his eyebrows. "Very clever. Yes, they see the images on the screen, and use their telepathy to transmit the images into my mind. It's been this way since that accident which cost me my eyes."
I couldn't help but gawk at him, which he must have 'seen', since he chuckled merrily just about then. "Oh, psychics do this all the time with prophecies, so I do wonder why everyone acts so surprised about it. Are you all that boring and uncreative these days?"
After a few seconds of me staring at him, he sighed, and shook his head. "You people are terrible, you know that? So, moving back to the topic of your eyes.
"You saw that the yellowish area was large and bordered by red lines. That was the head of your optic nerve, and the red lines were blood vessels. This image indicates swelling of the nerve head, and isn't much different from what I observed in your left eye. Do you understand me?"
Mutely, I nodded, and he continued speaking.
"Now, a few years ago, I noticed that people with water affinities tended to develop problems involving the optic nerve during their later years. Further testing revealed, interestingly enough, that their nerves were become more sensitive to sight in dim environments, just like those of a nocturnal animal," he said, putting down the remote that controlled the television. "A few theories and a little reading later, I found a logical hypothesis.
"You see, the creatures of the deep tend to have poor vision in bright environments, which explains why the giant squid has such gigantic pupils. The stupid things are practically blind if they reach the ocean's surface, really! And if you know your biology, you even have the remnants of a third eye in your brain, which used to be able to see in dim environments."
"I do?" I asked him, reflexively reaching up and rubbing a finger against my forehead. Most of my high school biology had just about deserted me right then, so I was more than a little confused by that statement of his.
He nodded, and leaned back in his seat. "Indeed you do. We call it the pineal gland, and it regulates your sleep cycle by releasing a sleep-inducing hormone called melatonin. Fittingly enough, exposure to light tells the pineal gland to reduce the release of melatonin, which is why we aren't nocturnal by nature.
"Regressing a little to where I mentioned our third eye this is most likely due to evolution, from when we were amphibious and just starting to colonise land. The sea is where all life originated from, and so during that transition period, we developed a third eye to allow us some sight while submerged."
He stopped speaking, and patted his mothim on the head as it landed on his left shoulder. The moth pokemon nuzzled his ear with its curled proboscis, and slowly flapped its wings, generating a light breeze that moved the papers on his desk a little.
"So, in the case of you folks with an affinity for water, your eyes seem to be moving back to their evolutionary roots, so to speak. You'd be blind, in the conventional sense of the term, but when in dark areas, you'd probably see much better than the average human being or perhaps even those with affinities for ghosts or darkness."
I frowned. "You seem uncannily familiar with this topic, doctor."
He shrugged and offered me a small smile. "Well, my area of specialty since I lost my sight was the optical relationship between pokemon and humans. You might not have realised this, but thanks to Fujiko and Fujio here, I'm possibly the first human to be able to understand what it's like to have compound eyes."
Briefly, he paused, and let out a happy sigh. "And with Nobi, my yanmega, I can see what the world looks like through a thousand eyes, even while flying at supersonic speed."
The mental image of the world as seen through a multitude of eyes, like the monitors back at the security room at port control, made me a little dizzy. "I'll pass on that."
"Alas, it's not for everyone!" he harrumphed. "So, the problem with your eyes is basically a neural degeneration that seems to only manifest in water-attuned trainers. It seems to have come about earlier, though, which leads me to believe that you have been extensively exposed to telepathic stimulus."
"So I won't be going blind?" I asked him, all but holding my breath.
"I doubt it," he said, shaking his head. "The patients I first diagnosed with this problem are effectively blind in daylight, but are currently capable of seeing even in pitch black conditions. One of them could, after some training, distinguish certain colours in dim lighting."
Relief washed over me like a breaking wave as I sank back in my chair. My head was spinning with the sheer magnitude of the news I'd just been given – I wasn't going blind!
"You're taking the news remarkably well," Doctor Harada commented, as he picked up a pen and started to scribble something out on a pad, as his mothim crawled over to focus its attention on the paper. "I'm prescribing you sunglasses fitted for your long-sightedness, which should help you read better in bright areas. And yes, you'll need to wear them indoors, even, if the need arises."
Hoo, boy. Silas and General Harding were going to have a laugh at that. I could hear the pimp jokes already.
xxx
As the good doctor had predicted, my eyesight improved significantly with a simple pair of sunglasses, albeit a pair with some power in them for my long-sight or whatever it was I had. I no longer had to squint to read signs or even printed documents, which was a relief. And who could forget me being able to ogle every piece of eye candy that passed by me since no one could see where I was looking?
Being able to nap during staff meetings was also amusing, even though I often missed on on announcements meant for General Harding. Served that bastard right for making me attend them in his place while he went of and shagged General Fen or what sometimes seemed to be half the male population of Canalave, anyway.
Speaking of the lovable bastard I called my commanding officer, his initial reaction to me wearing sunglasses was indeed a pimp joke. He had taken a single look at me, and had simply asked me where my rhinestone-studded white glove and white cane with a golden ball at its tip were.
"At least now you look even more… oh, never mind," he'd remarked, causing General Fen to snicker into his lunch.
"Yes, sir?" I asked politely, raising my eyebrows. That sent him into a giggling fit, and his long-suffering friend – also known as our resident steel specialist – just about smacked him into complete miffed silence.
General Fen gave me one of his signature carnivorous smirks, and winked. "I believe 'fuckalicious' was the word dear Zachary here was looking for. And I wouldn't raise my eyebrows like that if I were you – you look like a horny bastard all right, when you do that."
And if you thought their reactions were amusing, Silas' would have probably won some kind of award. He narrowed his eyes at me, and stuck his tongue out ramrod-straight like a poker.
"Trainer, you look like a retarded venonat," he declared, followed by a snappy withdrawal of his tongue and a fit of laughter that was so intense bubbles started leaking out between the two halves of his shell. When I rapped on his shell to check if he was alright, I received a blast of ice-cold water to my face.
Really, it was almost as if these people – and Silas – hadn't seen a bloke wearing sunglasses before!
xxx
"Again?" the pharmacist asked, looking mildly surprised as she rang up my purchase. "Young man, are you running a harem or something?"
"No, ma'am," I shook my head as I grinned at her and picked up the bag containing enough latex and gel to film the pornographic equivalent of the epic of Gilgamesh.
Apparently, the market for guys in sunglasses was hot in Canalave, and within a month of me getting into 'pimp mode' as General Harding so eloquently put it, even Moira Hew and her cougar buddies were wondering if I was breaking into the female market.
xxx
Six months after the Jubilife terrorist attack, my mother still hadn't woken up. I visited her at the hospital every night, and usually read by her bedside until the nurses there shooed me off. After the first two weeks, they gave up on sending me home once visiting hours ended, and only insisted I go home to get some sleep and a shower.
When Allan was finally deemed sane enough to be released from his pokeball and into my custody, I just about found myself being completely exhausted by the time I hit the sack. I was all but completely celibate during his first week of him getting accustomed to being taken care of by me, and the blue balls didn't help, either.
Thankfully, my glasses hid the dark circles around my eyes from General Harding.
Silas, however, knew just how tired I was, and so we ended up spending most nights after visiting Mom just relaxing on my bed, while Allan went out to terrorise the children of Canalave. He had regained some semblance of his old sense of humour, which did make me feel a little better, no matter how bad that might have sounded.
The little bastards needed some fear in their lives, anyway.
On the ninth month after the bombing, during a thunderstorm, there was a city-wide blackout in Canalave. Not long after the lights came back on, the night watchman at the dormitory called for me with urgent news from the hospital.
I don't remember being particularly distraught over it, but in Silas words, complete with a downcast expression:
"Trainer, you… you just sat down. And you brought your knees to your chest, and took off your glasses. And you just… sat there until Allan asked you for permission to see her one last time.
"And then you started crying."