Page 82 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 3 #1

82 SNOWFALL

us. Even so, JD (always the more thoughtful “Can’t say. Months at best.”
of the two of us) would sometimes ask, “What “Then?”
happens if they catch us?” “You understand we can slow it down. We
“I don’t know,” I’d tell him. “What’s the can’t fix it. Without irises, you will slowly de-
worst that can happen? They throw us in jail? stroy your retinas.”
Hell, cable TV, three meals a day, and all the I didn’t need to ask what would happen
sex you could want—sounds like a deal to then. I already knew. My dark glasses were
me.” I was being sarcastic. “Worst case,” I’d ever-present.
add, “you have three uncles who are lawyers.” In 1998, my sight was so bad that I count-
There was no time. No tomorrow, No day ed steps everywhere I went. If I crossed the
after. We were in the moment—this moment— campus at the University of North Carolina
and I wasn’t sure how many more I had. If an- and lost count, I would sit down and wait for
orexia didn’t kill me, blindness would. “I have someone to realize that I couldn’t find my
no intention of living blind. I won’t have it,” I way back.
said to my daughter, Rayn, one fall. “Your sensitivity to light will increase,”
It was—it is—a matter of time. I could feel the doctor continued. “Eventually, you will
it. The world was slipping into black and see in black and white. Then, even indoors,
white. The days when I actually saw color you will begin to wear the dark glasses all the
were becoming fewer. time, and then—”
“How long will this treatment last?” I asked “I’m going,” I said to myself, “The hell with
my doctor. it all.”

nyghtvision magazine volume 3, number 1, WINTER 2013