Lonely Eyes

15th Chapter

Francine Lune

    I suddenly got lost in my own thoughts, no longer hearing Agathe's words. I saw a baby pink polaroid camera on my sister's table and it made me think of my love for photography. And then I thought of Augustine. Damn, I wanted to give her a portrait of her own enchanting face so badly that it hurt. I clenched my fist and buried my fingernails into my palm. I wouldn't mind taking photos of her for free with different lighting, backdrops, and even settings, just so I could watch her capture my heart through her angles and poses, even though I would be the one capturing her. The power that she could hold. I wanted to take her on a dinner date and surprise her with a classic cake, a bunch of forget-me-nots, and a bouquet of blue roses.

    "How would she feel receiving her own portrait as a birthday present from me?" My mouth went dry and I couldn't just loosen my own grip regardless of the sweat breaking out and even when my nails had already been hurting me. My heart was a trip-hammer in my chest until everything turned out to be the kind of weight I could never take. I had been waiting for her for so long. I had been waiting for things to hurt no more, but why?

    "Agh..." I shut my eyes, applying a light pressure on my head with my fingertips, massaging it to ease the pain as it started shuddering and thumping with a series of sharp and strong beats for the umpteenth time again. Then I opened my eyes to look around only to end up regretting it as I began having tunnel vision, causing me to feel lightheaded. There were flashes of light which made my head hurt more. When things were blacking out, I saw Agathe with fear etched on her face. Her lips were trembling, screaming out some words I could no longer hear as I struggled to my own feet, slowly fainting and passing out, until everything went completely black.

    I lay awake in bed, wholly conscious. But as soon as I opened my eyes, everything was blurry and dim. It was still the same place, except for the changes in my sight. I looked around and saw how straight lines seemed like a wriggly caterpillar. The objects looked so near yet so far as they appeared to be small. Even some things in white became duller in color and others were tinted with brown. "Agathe..." I uttered faintly in a whisper, but she wasn't around. I groped for something my eyes didn't reach, just to feel my sense of touch. My hands kept searching blindly until they fumbled with a soft pillow.

    "Agathe?" I called her name again, in low tones, sounding breathy.

    I heard the door creak, until it shut. "Francine..." It was Agathe, walking towards me. She sat on the edge of the bed, but I couldn't see her face as smudge appeared at the center of my vision, and it looked like a gray spot.

    "Agathe, I-I can't s-see..." I admitted in a feeble tone of voice, stuttering. "I can't see you..." She quickly rose from the bed, excusing herself as she headed beneath a sturdy cabinet. I heard Agathe sob with endless convulsive gasps until the sounds were muffled, like she covered her mouth so I couldn't hear. "Why are you crying? Is that why you're hiding there?" A thousand thoughts began squirming through my head in fear. With shaky breaths and trembling hands, I cried out. "W-why can I no longer see clearly?!"

    Our aunt, Françoise, who happened to be the owner and ophthalmologist of this healthcare center had delivered some eye examinations and diagnosis to assess my latest condition since Agathe felt so emotional and vulnerable earlier that she couldn't handle bearing it. At first, it was only visual dyslexia resulting from visual stress. But my previous diagnosis wasn't the cause of my current condition. After going through my medical records and documents, Aunt Françoise said that in most cases, the causes were unknown. But surprisingly, the roots of mine were linked to emotional stress and anxiety.

    "When you get too stressed, the rates of your cortisol hormones also known as stress hormones can increase dangerously which can cause the leakage of fluid in your eyes, and that fluid builds up under your retina, the part that is responsible for translating the light that enters your eyes into images. When that happens, it distorts your vision." Aunt Françoise was soft-spoken with her silvery and dulcet tone.

    I heard about that from Agathe whilst she was studying before. She said that cortisol could be an essential hormone for a person's health since it could prepare the human body for a physiological reaction called fight-or-flight by flooding it with energy through a sugar called glucose. But too much could be dangerous, and that was what happened to my highly-raised levels of cortisol or stress hormone.

    I heard Aunt Françoise take a deep breath, slowly releasing air with a gentle hum before speaking in a modulated way to name the nature of my condition. "Francine, you've been diagnosed with a sight-threatening condition called central serous chorioretinopathy, affecting both of your eyes. In some cases, it can correct itself and disappear on its own without medical treatments, but in others, it can lead to a permanent vision loss especially when it's not resolved well." And that made me not know how to feel.

    Augustine, how can I be able to see you now that my vision is slowly getting impaired?