bogeyandruby

I had a dream last night that came back to me like a jolt halfway through my first cup of coffee this morning.

Like many people, I find it nearly impossible to remember my dreams and the ones I do recall are those that have been rudely interrupted by either my alarm clock or the dogs whining to be let out and fed.

Even then, if I don’t immediately recount my dream out loud, it soon disappears into the ether. I have never been good at retention which is why I was surprised that this one came back to me so vividly.

I was in my childhood home, the TV room to be specific, recovering from yet another eye surgery, when something compelled me, call it a heeby-jeeby, to check my eye in the mirror of the adjacent powder room. To my horror, my non-operated eye had drifted to the outer part of its socket and had rotated itself so that the cornea faced the bridge of my nose. I say drifted but it had obviously been violently yanked out of place because a pool of blood was forming in the space where it used to be. Don’t ask me how it was physiologically possible for me to see this because my operated eye was still covered by a dressing. Perhaps it was my third eye looking inwards as it is wont to do.

To make matters worse, my rogue eyeball then untethered itself and rolled like a gum ball down some magical tunnel to become lodged in the space between my spinal column and my throat which isn’t really a space at all from what I remember from my gross anatomy course and from the drawing below.

At that point, my ophthalmologist brother magically appeared (we did grow up together in the house) and shone a light down my throat. « These things happen, » he shrugged. « Try a warm compress on the eye and it should resolve itself eventually. »

Remember Vincent Price in the movie The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)?

« He can’t use his mouth to speak– or do anything else. So there are hilarious shots of him eating and drinking by putting the spoon or glass around to the back of his neck. »

If a mouth can be moved to the back of the neck, why not an eye?

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On another note, I have my eclipse glasses and camera ready for tomorrow but I am considering closing my eyes until it is all over. My father permanently damaged his retinas by looking directly into a total eclipse of the sun. That and I suffered a retina detachment 18 months ago. I certainly don’t need anymore eye drama. Cue eye roll. 🙄

Please be careful if you are planning to watch it.