Two Eyes, Two Views

I've been wearing this eye patch for months, now. I told my friends and family that I'd had an eye infection and the patch was needed to help with the recovery, but they'll have to work out soon enough that this was a lie. I can't wear it forever.

Luckily, I live alone so it hasn't been too hard to hide most of the time. Eventually, though, I'll have to take it off.

The first time I discovered this "gift" (after all, that's how people would probably describe it) I was physically sick. I can't even tell you why it started, only when.

It happened while I stood in the queue at my local supermarket. A little old lady was being served and chatted happily to the cashier. Suddenly, I had an itch in my right eye and, as I closed it and rubbed it, I saw through my left eye a...vision...of that same sweet lady at home mercilessly beating her disabled husband. Vision may not be the right word, I felt her husband's pain both physical and mental. Not just the pain of that beating, the pain of everything she had inflicted on him for what was almost certainly many years.

I threw up on the spot and started to feel faint. The next thing I remember I was lying on the floor surrounded by concerned looking people. Apparently I had gone down pretty hard and banged the side of my face. The manager of the supermarket was holding a bag of frozen peas over my now swollen left eye. The old lady from the queue had given me a tissue to wipe the vomit from my face. Looking at her now, I felt a radiating love from within. I felt the joy of her grandchildren as she baked for them, and the reassurance that her pet terrier (whose name I somehow knew was Bella) felt every time this lady returned home.

Looking around, I was surrounded by similar feelings from all those who had stopped to help. It was honestly overwhelming. I had no idea what was happening, I assumed I was having some sort of episode. Surely that would also explain the horrific thing I had seen before blacking out.

I rose to my feet and thanked everybody for being so concerned. I did my best to try to convince them I was fine. I certainly didn't want to go to the hospital, not after what happened last time.

I removed the bag of peas from my face and tried to open my left eye. Though I was only able to open it a tiny bit and felt severe pain. Not in my eye, in my...everything.

I saw, and felt, once again the pain that this lady's husband lived and, looking around, I felt so much more. People who had been cheated on, people who had been lied to and belittled, and a young girl, maybe 19 years old called Lucy, who had taken her own life after being raped by the well-dressed man stood just my right.

I know I got out of there as quickly as I can but, I'll be honest, the next few days are a bit of a blur. All I can say for sure is that it didn't go away, and still hasn't.

The swelling on my eye was bad enough that I wasn't able to open it for a while without serious effort. This gave me time to buy a gauze patch and some medical tape without needing to see anything that I didn't want to. By the time it healed, I had been wearing the patch non-stop...but, like I said, I'll have to take it off eventually.

I'm terrified of what I'll see next. I've been avoiding my friends and family as much as I can because I don't want to know what they're hiding. How do I live knowing, feeling, truly understanding the pain that they've inflicted on others?

The thing that scares me the most, though, is that eventually I'll have to look at myself.