Point of view on the collection: Maria Fusco

Point of view on the collection: Maria Fusco

How you lost the stars

How You Lost the Stars

Apparently you have abnormally large optic nerves. Whilst this is not an immediate cause for concern, the ophthalmologist tells you it could be an early indicator of the onset of glaucoma. Just to be sure, he wants to test the range of your peripheral vision, he leads you out of his consultancy room and into the hallway where there's an adult-sized ovoid machine awkwardly positioned in the corner.

The ophthalmologist instructs you to put a black plastic eye patch over your left eye, and to position your chin onto a black plastic rest. As far as you can make out, both appear to be made from the same stuff, you wonder if they were manufactured in the same place, from the same material, at approximately the same time. Your chin fits surprisingly snugly onto the black plastic rest, you feel somewhat assured by this, as an indicator of the average nature of your facial features. After all, you can't help but feel more than a little worried about having larger than normal optic nerves, and what this might mean.

Placing a cold compact controller in your right hand, the ophthalmologist pushes your finger down on a button using the pressure of his hand above yours: you wonder why he didn't demonstrate this before you were told to place your head in the machine.

The first thing you notice is nothing. It takes your eyes a little while to get used to this (a novel sensation) after ten seconds you can't remember looking at anything else. Directly in front of you is a miniscule glowing red dot, and just below it aligned in a short row, three marginally larger black pocks in the moulded plastic; it takes you a few seconds to work out these holes are actually bored into the fabric of the machine, and not just tiny perfect circles rendered on its surface.

Dim grey lights begin to appear in an irregular sequence all around the inside of the dome, each time you feel confident you've definitely seen one, however faint, the ophthalmologist has instructed to you depress the controller's button. It registers your selection with what sounds like (but surely can't be, can it?) a brief sigh. The lights grow more indistinct and less regular. You've been told you've got to keep your head in this machine for four minutes each eye: you're already getting tired.

You think to yourself (maybe there's no-one listening, but you can't be sure) you think to yourself: what am I looking for?

The back bedroom, small. Small, but big enough for two people to sleep in comfortably, though it was never comfortable. It could just about accommodate a diminutive double bed (if such a thing were available to buy, is it?) pushed up against the left-hand wall, and planted on the right-hand wall, chest of drawers which had been in the house for as long as you could remember.

Put together from a thin cheap wood of some sort, the drawers were surprising light, each time you pulled them out, you registered the same slight jolt of disbelief something so flimsy could actually hold anything. They squealed and squeaked when eased out, an uneven cry that didn't diminish with use. Squeal out. Squeak in. Very resistant. Very resentful. Badly made? Maybe. Certainly cheap like all the other furniture in the house, and indeed the house itself. Groaning. Complaining. Unhappy. Trapped.

Pause. A low whirr and the ovoid machine relaxes into a breather. The ophthalmologist tells you to take the black plastic eye patch off your left eye, and to put it over your right eye. Wheeze and begin again.

When the drawers were shut in place again, it wasn't possible to see the real inside colour of their wood at all. The outside surface was coated with decades worth of paint, which, when viewed from the side of the cracked corner of one of the drawers, could be said to read like the rings in a tree trunk. Layers of shades from the same palette, but no less distinguishable.

Overwhelmingly yellowing at the bottom, redolent of tired gloss which can't even be bothered to promote its shiny surface. Varying hues from there on up: very yellow; yellow; less yellow; slightly yellow; a smidgen of yellow; magnolia; cream; ivory; a hint of white; slightly white, never quite achieving brilliance even when freshly coated. Somehow the thin wood drank in the brightness, tainting it, reminding the outside how unhappy the inside really was.

Sick, like.

Apparently your peripheral vision is average. Not brilliant, not amazing, not preternatural, but not bad. You can see okay. The point of your chin hurts, and your right eyelid is clammy when you peel off the black plastic eye patch.

The things you've seen. It will be at least eighteen months until you see them again.



Maria Fusco

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