At some point, I tried taking a picture in the elevator. My jacket has an interesting design. It is a well tailored coat with a thin hood sewn in the fabric. The head of the hood can be adjusted by pulling two elastic strings with small, matching black knobs on the end of each string. When I raised my camera up to take the picture in the elevator, one of these knobs got caught in my Camera strap, stretched the string to its full length, and then it released itself, flying rapidly upwards, crashing into my left eye at full speed.

It really, really hurt.

That night I went to sleep without much worry, but the next morning I couldn’t remember why my eye hurt. I looked in the mirror and it was red and throbbing and then I said, “Oh, the camera.” I went about my day with no problems.

Three days later, I can’t see.

If I opened my left or right eye, pain flooded both eyes. My room was dark, because the curtains were drawn, but still my eye hurt like nobody’s business. The light from my laptop was like a needle hitting my nerves, and I had to grit my teeth and go under the covers. Even the ambient light slipping in under the covers made me cringe. I had been in my apartment for only two days, and now I was visually impaired. I shut the laptop and groped around the room, covering my left eye with one hand. I found a tie and made a makeshift eye patch. The situation is terrible. I open the blinds slightly and see everything go white for a moment and more excruciating pain smash me in the face. I shut them quickly, and try to think. I need dark glasses of some kind. I slip into some clothes quickly and head outside with the tie over my eye. The light is murder, but I’ve made the tie good enough to block almost any light from hitting the left eye. Squinting my right eye, I can just barely manage to walk on the sidewalk. I make it to a Brazilian store a few blocks away and buy a pair of sunglasses for a thousand yen. I slip them on, and I have temporary relief. The light still hurts, and I’m still wearing a tie over the left eye.

I struggle between spots of white light and complete darkness back home. In my apartment, I try not to panic. I don’t know my address, and i haven’t received a cellphone yet because i’m supposed to try and get one next week. There is no one to call. I am fully awake, but spend the rest of the day with my eyes closed, waiting for nightfall, hidden under the bed covers of my futon. I am still wearing the tie and the dark glasses even under the sheets. Nightfall comes and I feel fear in my system. I drift to one of the only places i’m familiar with, the hotel i was staying at before I moved to my apartment. Thankfully it is only three or so blocks away. It is a long journey, with me mostly hiding from the light with my tie getup and also covering my head with a hoodie. Inside, finally, I luckily see a person connected to my company. With concern in his voice, he calls someone and tells me they will take me to the doctor tomorrow. My eyes feel less stressed on the way back home and I think I’m getting better. I’m wrong. The next day, it is worse. I can barely get out of bed and I’m worried about permanently damaging my eye. However, i’m meeting with my International Correspondent on this day (she is the person who will help me get my telephone and a few other things) and we go to the doctor. It’s so bad that I hold on to hand-rails when I walk and follow just the soles of her feet as we walk to and fro. My eyes are really slits now. Eventually, we make it to the Doctor’s office. This time I’m wearing my glasses and a sleep mask. For some reason, I fall into a deep stream of thought about past love as I sit and wait in a crowded Doctor’s office. I’m sitting in the darkness, listening to the sounds around me, and I get inspired to write. I squint with my right eye and catch a cute secretary smile at me, then I write this on a notepad:

In these moments when darkness is all around me, I sometimes think of love. Love is elusive, and the idea of it sends a quiet echo of feeling I can’t describe in my soul. Attraction and sexuality are normal parts of what we know as reality, but the idea of love—or being loved has made my sensibilities change. I think about this while waiting for Miss Nakamura to return to the doctor’s office. In the darkness I can get a sense of what is going on around me. Machines beep in the background, electronic doors open and close with a hiss. Nimble fingers shuffle through papers somewhere in front of me. I can hear a cartoon playing on a television somewhere to my left. It is quiet in the office and it has the same smell of every Doctor’s office I’ve ever been in. It’s always moments like this that the silence acknowledges my fears. My spirit is quiet, and I have no real desperation, but I fear I will not be loved. I’ll just forever be the guy in the corner with the cool jacket

<scribble>

She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know that posting a message on my Facebook wall triggered a slight shift in my equilibrium. She doesn’t know that whenever I see her name in an old e-mail, or on an old piece of paper, a feeling that I can’t describe hits my chest. Excitement? Fear? I cannot say, but she doesn’t know. Seeing her name caused me to dream about her two nights in a row, which bothers me. She reminds me of love lost, and whenever she sends me a small communicade, it reminds me that she is truly gone. Years have passed and still the thought of her gives me pause. After all the women, all the traveling and all the introspection, she still touches me in that place that almost no one can reach, with a simple message. Like most birthday wishes, hers was most likely the simplest kind, a momentary lapse of our radio silence that sends her briefly into my world, where we exchange a candid e-mail and then remain silent until the next convenient event rears its head. She does not know the effect she has on me, and I don’t know why she has it. Telling the truth always seems to get me into trouble. It leaves me feeling burned and empty, like the black husk of a sacrificial lamb. When you lose love you lose a piece of your soul, and I fear I will never find that missing piece. I did not want to think of her when I was here, because she would be holding onto me from afar, clutching at my neck and filling my head with dreams I don’t want. Is this really love? Or is it some kind of unique torture? I want to be happy, but I don’t know what price to pay. I don’t want to tell her anything, knowing she doesn’t love me back. I’m supposed to be starting a new life, but I don’t feel that way just yet. People are similar and love and pain are universal. I want to party again, but the price of admission seems a little fucking steep…

<end of writing>

After I write this, I hear my name.

“Maracoose Baroodo sama?” a voice says from somewhere behind me. I grab my bag and sit on a chair. A tall, balding Japanese doctor barks at me rapidly in Japanese. I don’t understand a word of it. I think he is telling me to look forward and tell him what I can see. I explain to him in my best Japanese that I cannot open my eyes. He huffs and then gestures for me to go back into the waiting room. Miss Nakamura hasn’t returned yet, and I slip the eye patch back on, and fall into the darkness again. Eventually, miss Nakamura returns and I see the doctor. He is a different fellow from the first person I saw. I sit in a dim room and he flashes a few different colored lights into my eyes. Each blast of light is like a punch to the stomach. “Ue mitte kudasai.” (look up) he says. “Hidari to ue mitte kudaisa.” (up and left) he says. He repeats the variations for a while and then speaks quickly. Through misses Nakamura, I hear the translation. “Your eye is fine,” she says. “It seems there was an injury about two days ago, but now it is all right.” He prescribed some eye drops and I was free to go. For my own reasons, I asked for a copy of the picture of my injured eye I viewed on the monitor, which he printed for me.