Joe couldn’t sleep. He laid down, pulled the covers up, and stared at the ceiling. His anxiousness for tomorrow kept him up, and Dr. Cajo Tehinjhm had not helped matters by reminding Joe about it as he retired for the night. Joe thought he’d never fall asleep as he continued to lay there.
Then Joe woke up. He blinked his eye a few times as the morning light broke through the blinds. Joe always forgot to close them before he went to bed. Joe sat up and stretched his arms before his anxiousness from last night returned. The sunlight meant it was a new day. An important day. The day the bandage came off.
After throwing the covers back and walking across the chilly floor of the bedroom, Joe reached the bathroom and turned on the light. He looked up at himself in the mirror, and the first thing he saw was a smile on his face. The next thing he saw was the bandage around his head covering his right eye. Joe raised his hand and brushed his fingers across the fabric. He remembered the morning he woke up and learned he no longer had his right eye. It felt like an eternity since that day two years ago. But Joe smiled today, because he would soon open his new eye.
Once dressed, Joe made his way out into the main room of the doctor’s place. Cajo was pouring themselves a morning cup of hermse tea, which smelled foul and was probably why it was a popular “wake up” drink. Cajo then turned to look at Joe as he entered the room.
“I thought you’d be up earlier,” said Cajo as they offered to pour Joe a cup.
“I overslept,” said Joe as he motioned with a hand he’d pass on a drink. “I couldn’t fall asleep last night.”
Cajo took a sip from their cup before looking at the bandage wrapped around Joe’s head.
“I assume you’re ready for that bandage to come off now, right?”
“Is the sun up?” joked Joe.
“Yes, it is,” chuckled Cajo. “Let’s head to the lab.”
***
Joe sat on the side of an operating table as Cajo woke their computer and looked over some readings. Cajo skimmed the data quickly, but for Joe, it felt like eons. Cajo then turned to Joe with a pair of scissors in hand.
“I’m going to remove the bandage, but I want you to keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them,” said the doctor. “Will you do that?”
“Yes, doctor,” said Joe with a nod before he closed his eye.
Cajo chuckled.
“You don’t need to sound so formal, Joe,” they said. “Haven’t we grown familiar enough with each other over the last two months to know that?”
Joe just smiled.
“Okay. Here we go,” said Cajo.
Joe tried to stay still as the doctor cut through a piece of the bandage. Cajo then began to unwrap it from around Joe’s head. When Joe felt the last of it fall away, Joe had to force himself to keep his eyes closed. Joe knew he must have made a face as he fought the feeling when Cajo let out a liquidy laugh.
“One more thing,” said Cajo. “Keep them closed for a moment.”
Joe heard Cajo typing away at their computer for a few moments before everything grew quiet.
“Okay. You ready?” asked Cajo.
“Ready,” said Joe.
“Then open your eyes.”
Joe intentionally opened his left eye alone first. He saw Cajo looking right at him with a critical expression. A moment later, Joe slowly opened his right eye and saw in a way he hadn’t for too long. Joe had thought he’d never see like this again.
With both eyes opened, Joe could see more of the room than before. He turned his head to the right and looked over his shoulder. He could look over his right shoulder! It was a simple thing, but Joe felt such joy for being able to do it. He then faced forward again and saw Cajo smiling at him. This made Joe smile, and he closed his left eye to see only through his right eye.
“How do you feel?” asked Cajo.
“Fantastic!” said Joe. Joe started to laugh as he opened both eyes.
Then something changed.
As Joe laughed, the vision in his right eye changed. His vision became black and white, and he started to see through Cajo. Through them! Joe could see details of the computer behind Cajo, and then Joe started to see the shelves and wall behind the computer. Joe’s eyes grew wide as he soon saw the wall of the building next door, and then he saw through that wall to the empty rooms inside.
Startled, Joe closed his eyes and looked down. After shaking his head, Joe opened his eyes slowly to look up at Cajo.
“Are you okay?” asked the doctor.
Joe couldn’t respond as he reacted to his vision changing again. Through his right eye, he saw all kinds of different colors. The computer burned with a bright red while the rest of the room looked yellow, green, and blue. Cajo also looked green. Joe then held up his right hand and looked at it, seeing lots of red in his vision.
“I–,” Joe started to say but cut himself off when he flinched.
Several points and small lines appeared around Joe’s hand. The lines fluctuated in length but not by much. Joe lowered his hand and looked to his right, and many, many more dots and lines flooded his vision. They all varied slightly in length and changed slowly, but when Joe looked out the window, the lines exploded. They all pointed in the same direction and were much longer and fluctuated more quickly. The field broke as a being walked by, their coat blowing in the same direction as the field lines.
Joe’s eyes continued to grow wide, and his head started to hurt. Joe closed his eyes once more, looked down, took a deep breath, and then opened them again as he looked to his left. His right eye showed another whole spectrum of colors, ones that fluctuated more frequently than the first ones he'd seen. The intensity increased around the lights and from the windows.
“Joe?” asked Cajo as they reached out and patted Joe’s right leg.
Joe flinched and blinked from the contact, turning to look down at the table. The surface of the table had been gray with a white blanket running down the middle of it, but Joe started to see small dots appear sporadically along the surface. When Joe instinctively focused on one of the dots, it started to move a bit and grew larger as his right eye zoomed in on the dot. This surprised Joe, causing him to look up and away. His eye darted from one small dot to another small dot floating in the air. One looked like a piece of dirt, another looked like a piece of dead skin, and a third looked alive but unrecognizable. But more and more of these things crossed Joe’s vision, overwhelming his mind.
“Joe!”
Cajo cried out, and Joe felt the doctor’s slimy arms catch him as Joe started to fall to the side. Joe wasn’t able to focus on anything anymore, and his eyes rolled back into his head. Joe soon lost consciousness.
***
Joe woke up, slowly opening only his left eye as he felt an eyepatch over his right eye. He saw Cajo looking down at him, and when Cajo realized Joe was conscious, Cajo started to shake their head.
“I knew this would happen,” said the doctor.
Joe groaned in response. His head hurt and his body felt sore.
“Don’t feel discouraged, Joe,” continued the doctor. “To be honest, you handled it a lot longer than I expected.”
“Wh-What?” asked Joe, raising his right hand and resting it over his right eye.
“The Human eye sees a set wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, and your right eye now sees that whole spectrum and more.”
Joe finally felt like sitting up and did so slowly. A blanket that had been covering him fell into his lap. Joe held his head in his right hand as he took deep breaths in hopes they’d relieve his headache. They did not. Cajo helped Joe sit up with a hand and softly patted Joe on the back.
“I’m going to try again,” muttered Joe.
Cajo shook their head and gurgled a snort.
“Don’t you remember what I told you before the surgery?” said Cajo. “It will take time for you to adapt to your new eye. It’s an all seeing eye, Joe. You’ll see a lot more than your brain can process when you don’t know how to control it. When you were a newborn, how long did it take you to learn how to process approximately three hundred nanometers of the electromagnetic spectrum?”
Cajo gave Joe a hard pat on the back and chuckled as they turned away to look back at their computer.
Joe looked forward and lowered his hand. He stared ahead and saw a small mirror sitting on a shelf.
“I at least need to see it,” said Joe.
Cajo turned to look at Joe and then followed Joe’s gaze. Cajo nodded slowly.
“I understand,” said Cajo. “Just put the eyepatch back on if you start to feel overwhelmed.”
After hopping off the table, Joe made his way to the mirror. He removed his eyepatch as he approached but kept his right eye closed. With his left hand, Joe grabbed the mirror and lifted it up to see his reflection. He saw his left eye staring back at him and soon shifted his gaze to his right eye. Joe couldn’t see any scars from the Birnstein’s claws that had removed his eye long ago. It looked like nothing had ever happened. After taking a deep breath, Joe opened his right eye.
Joe saw a light brown eye looking back at him. Before the surgery, Cajo had said they’d make it look identical to Joe’s left one. Shifting the mirror to see both of his eyes at the same time, Joe saw the doctor had done exactly that.
When a small smile came to Joe’s face, the vision in his right eye shifted and started to show several shades of green. Joe quickly set the mirror down, closed his eyes, and worked to get the eyepatch back over his right eye. His headache had started to intensify, too.
“Take it slow,” said Cajo from behind Joe. “Your eye can be adjusted by where you look, blink, and even think as you get more familiar with it. I did write a guide when I was making it. I'll send it to you.”
Joe turned back to face Cajo and opened his left eye.
“I’m sure for an all-seeing eye, it will be a short book,” laughed Joe.
“Volumes, actually,” said Cajo. The doctor let silence linger for a long moment before they started to chuckle. “When you know what each field means, you’ll be able to think of what you want and your eye will adjust accordingly. But it will take time.”
“I’ll have it mastered in no time,” said Joe confidently.
Cajo nodded. “I have no doubt, Joe.”