the night before I visit the optometrist…

…a Cyclops climbs in my bedroom window and demands that I supply him with a second eye. Well, there’s no arguing with a Cyclops who’s standing over you in a menacing attitude, so, sighing at how hard life has always been and continues to be, I pluck one out and give it to him. I’m surprised at how easy it is, really. Why haven’t I done this before? There’s something appealing about looking at the world with one eye. The depth of things is gone, you can just skate over the surface without making any attempt to judge distances or measure heights. Your field of vision is considerably reduced, meaning there are fewer upsetting things to look at. You only have to close one eye to take a nap. I could go on. The glass is half full, I think to myself triumphantly.

Meanwhile, the Cyclops, having made an attempt to insert my surplus eye into various concavities in his face, is beginning to realize there’s a reason this strategy has never before worked for a Cyclops. Muttering with frustration, he tosses the eye into the glass of water by my bed as he exits the way he came in, leaving a shattered window frame behind. I’ll have to get someone in to look at that in the morning, I think, and start to reach for the eye to reinsert it. But why would I need an eye when I’m asleep? I might as well find out what it’s like to dream without it. The Cyclops–I’m fairly sure I hear him roaring somewhere down the street to the accompaniment of a car alarm–has left us no account of his one-eyed dreams.

trading marbles
I end up
with the moon