Simon Astoniges had never been able to see himself clearly, but he had long known he was ugly. He knew it from the reactions of those around him, the lack of warmth in friendships, and he assumed that he was ugly on the inside as well as out, missing that core to which full human beings were drawn. He defined himself and his lot from reading, his face as close to the book as if he would burrow in, eyes trembling behind glasses so thick the weight of them pulled against his ears, left red indentations on his nose. Stories about ugly humans touched him, though rarely were the homely ones admirable, but villains, appearance molded from the center out.
When he learned, had verified, that what little sight he had was waning, going, dark shutting in before death, he panicked. He had never worked, never traveled, never paid much attention to the massive rooms of the home he inherited, only moved among them, the sparse furniture spaced for his ease. Now, in anticipation of not even the shading of light and dark, he pressed near every painting, every ancestor, crawled on the Persian rugs, memorizing the intricate pattern. He ordered more and more books, hired three young men to read and make tapes against his future. He inched through the flower gardens and walkways, traced leaves with his fingertips, held petals to his lips, storing away colors and textures with scents. He stood one night for hours, face upturned to the moon, that blur of silver, muted but visible, like the sky parting, an opening he would never see again and must remember.
Then suddenly the dark descended totally and he lay in the center of his bed, unable to move, fearful of an abyss on all sides, the end of the world all around him, and only he aware of it.
At the doctor's orders, two of the young men lifted him against his protests, against his thrashing, and carried him downstairs, depositing him in a chair, apologizing abjectly.
"Simon," the doctor said, kneeling at the chair and stroking his friend's hand. "Simon. You've got to pull yourself together. You've known for a long time this was coming. You can adapt."
"I don't want to."
"You don't have any choice."
"That's what I hate. I've never had any choice. Never."
One of the young men guided him everywhere, and gradually the terror lifted, but he could not recall anything he had ever seen. He knelt in the garden, pulled petals, smelled the deep scent, tasted them, and could not recall their shape or hue. Then he grieved again, for years wasted, when he should have been gathering memories he could see, colors to wash through the wasteland behind his lids. He could draw on nothing, nothing.
When the young men read to him, he tried to create the scene in the stage of his mind, but the curtains remained closed, words floated disembodied, lovers embraced only sound. One story had always moved him, of an ugly man whose pet, a white, mongrel dog, would sit on his hind legs and beg when his owner spoke the words "I'm ugly. Oh god, why am I so ugly?" Simon made his young helpers scan all the shelves throughout the house to find the book. He seated himself by the fireplace, had them read the scene repeatedly. He tried to conjure up the pet, that creature he had always seen as if it were his own companion, but it would not take form.
"Leave me alone," he wept, and the young men obeyed. He sat before the fire, sometimes weeping, sometimes railing. He rubbed his eyes furiously, wished he had the fortitude to gouge them out, useless things, throw them with contempt into the fire and die without eyes at all, die ripped of even the desire for sight. He fell asleep still weeping, the fire lowering, lowering, sifting cold finally, and still he slept. The young men, peering into the great drafty room, left him there, one creeping in only to spread a blanket over his lap. In the morning, they moved quietly again, hovering at the doorway, waiting for his first movement to signal the tray they had prepared.
"What's this," he said once, then again, more loudly, "What's this?" his hands gripped the curved armfronts, his body straightened suddenly. "I see colors. A red rim. Around both eyes, both eyes. Both eyes. A red rim. Yes. Definitely. You? You? Are you there?"
The young men hurried forward, then called the doctor at his urging.
"It's normal, Simon," the doctor assured him. "I'm surprised you haven't seen colors before, though some people don't."
"You mean I should have? should have seen colors? what else?"
"Not should have; could have. Some people see patterns, some colors, some think they see light and dark come and go. There's no set rule."
"I want there to be. This might go. I don't want the color to go."
"It probably won't. If it's there now, I imagine it will stay. In fact, if you'll give in to it, you may have more sensations of vision."
"Vision."
"Not actual vision."
He was so terrified it would leave him, he insisted on remaining in the chair, on having the fire laid as it had been the night before, on being read to again, the same story, the same number of times, and he easily wept, though sleep came even later. He dreamed of all things red, all shades; they floated and shaped and unformed to shape again.
"Am I awake?" the young men heard.
"Yes sir. You're in the study sir."
"Yes sir."
"I mean it. It's small, with seven petals, dark red."
"Yes sir."
"Is there such a flower in this room? Anywhere in this room?"
"No sir."
"Within the house?"
No, they said, and no, not in the garden. No, they didn't think they had ever seen such a flower. Would he describe it again.
He held up one hand. "About so large, the size of my palm. Seven petals, elongated, deeper red in the center vein."
"No sir. Sorry."
He would leave the chair then only for those necessities of maintaining the body, and each night he must hear the same story, in the same way.
"You have to move about, Simon," his doctor friend insisted. "They tell me you won't leave this room for more than a few moments. That you eat here, sleep here."
"Have they told you what I see?"
"They tell me you say you see."
"Listen. To my right is a red flower. It appeared first, alone, deeper red than blood, fragile, much like transparent velvet."
"There's no flower here, though. You realize that."
"Wait. The flower is in a blue vase, with fluted edges, and the vase is filled with gold fluid--the gold fuses into the blue."
"Your mind is providing you with images, Simon, not reality."
"I am seeing these things. They are permanent. I can turn my gaze to the vase, or to the window. I have a front step, too, bricks, old ones, worn smooth as moist clay."
"There's a name for this."
"I don't want a name. Don't name it. Don't."
"I have to. You're my friend as well as my patient. This is no good."
Simon pressed his ears closed with the heels of his hands.
"Anton's Syndrome," the doctor said. "Simon." He pulled at one of Simon's hands, but Simon jerked it back, though not quickly enough to avoid hearing "Anton's Syndrome."
"I won't need you anymore," Simon told the young men. "But you've been more than good to me." He furnished them sufficient money to urge their compliance, but still they felt duty bound to stop by the doctor's home and report, that many evenings Simon had been refusing food, and on those evenings requested a bottle of wine, wrapped, for taking out with him.
"He believes he has dinner with a friend in the country," they reported. "A Lady Wilshire of Hartford Road."
The doctor selected the text he would have to read to Simon, and before he left his own home, he checked the directory for any Wilshire on a Hartford Road. He found many Wilshires, but no Hartford Road neither in the directory nor the city map.
"I can't leave you here alone," he said, sitting across from Simon in the study, "unless you snap out of this. I want to read something to you."
"Read away. Feel free to turn on the lamp."
"There is no lamp."
"Slightly behind you. A floor lamp. It's relatively new. I got it, let's see, three days ago. At Bellecamp's. Have you been there. Delightful store."
"'Anton's Sydrome. Denial of, and usually unawareness of, one's own blindness, with resort to confabulation.'"
"You want me to admit that I'm denying I'm blind? Freely done."
"I want you to stop denying."
"I can't. The evidence is all around you."
"No, Simon, it isn't. There is no lamp beside me. No flower. There has never been a store called Bellecamps, not to my knowledge."
"Perhaps not. But to mine, yes."
"These...visions will not hurt you if you only see them. But you can't live them."
"Says the book?"
"Says sanity and survival. Your men told me you often do not eat."
"I eat. Dine, actually. And quite well."
When the doctor left, Simon settled deeply into his chair, watching the doorway at the end of the short hallway from study to the new wing, where French doors gave to a green sweep of lawn. He was certain some creature, timid, only a shadow, wanted very much to pad down the hall. Simon didn't take his gaze from the door. "Come on," he coaxed. "I won't hurt you. Come let me see what you are." A few moments later he smiled broadly. "Oh my, oh my. A dog and not a dog. But so soft. What shall it be? milk? a bit of roast? Oh, jump in my lap would you? Are you a smart creature? Will you learn to sit on command?"
When the doctor called again, he was not surprised at the unswept walkway, the dying flowers, the dark entry, the cloying odor of a house unopened to sun or air. He was surprised by the state of Simon, by the fevered intensity revealed in the high color of his cheeks and in the almost natural, almost sighted, movement of his blind eyes.
"So glad you came," Simon greeted him. "We were just reading. Or, rather, I was."
"We?"
"Oh, yes. You haven't met. My wife. Lillith."
Simon had extended his hand, eyes seeming to follow the movements of someone rising from the sofa to stand beside him. "I told her about you, that you would likely call soon. She thought we should have a formal gathering, but I've delayed. Right, dear? Yes, well, now no matter."
"Could I examine you briefly? Perhaps something has changed."
Simon laughed, low, soft. "Everything has changed. The whole world has changed. My world."
"But you're not well, Simon. You're deteriorating. Let me just listen..."
"No."
"Someone has to care for you."
"Someone does."
"There's no one here, Simon. No one."
"Not you either?" He laughed, a harsher, quicker sound. "How odd for you. Then we'll return to our reading." He stepped back, as if allowing someone to turn and pass before him. Then he sat, took a book from the table beside him, and commenced to read. The doctor let himself out to the sound of Simon's firm voice from the study: "'The solitude was unrelenting, unbearable, in spite of the loyal companion who, not human, served to remind him that only a creature such as this could abide his presence. He longed for the touch of a loving, human, hand.'"
Simon found the passages fresher, the descriptions more poignant, vivid, as he cast them in voice for her. She held their pet across her lap, stroked its ebony coat. Simon paused in his reading only once, simply at the graceful beauty of her being.
The day the doctor and his men came for Simon, they had to fasten his gaunt frame to the bed to keep him from thrashing off, running away. "Lillith," he called. "Lillith, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He hissed at them, gnashed as if he would bite. "She can't get along without me. You fools. Idiots. She's blind, blind, blind." They sedated him, kept him bound, fed him intravenously, yet each time he wakened only briefly, he called the same name, weeping, grieving. "She'll die. She'll die. They'll both die. Oh let me go."
They increased the medication. "He has to rest, gain some strength."
Weeks passed. His face reflected a deep, internal struggle. The lines darkened, the eyes, even closed, were sheer sorrow—sunken, hollow. When they let him emerge briefly from drugged sleep for moments, he said nothing, did not move.
"Poor soul," the staff whispered. "Such grief. At least he's quiet now."
Then his expression changed, almost imperceptibly. The lips were firmer, the brow smooth. One morning, the nurse sped for the doctor. "He's talking."
Simon could not bear the sight of the graves, so alone, the starkness of the hill, the visible cold of a winter moon. "I'm sorry," he said. He leaned to draw closed the shutters, shut the window, and returned to his chair before the fire. He glimpsed himself in the mirrors banking the fireplace. How dare he appear the same, unmarred, unravaged. He took the vial from his robe pocket, studied the filigree, the fine craftsmanship of some past artist. The vial had belonged to his friend, the doctor, long gone now. Dead these many years. He uncapped the vial, tapped its contents into the wine glass. "Are you watching, Lillith?" he whispered. He raised the glass. "This dear, is to you, to us." He drained it. He opened her favorite book, began reading the passage she most liked.
The doctor had stood quietly, listening, while Simon stared at the closet door, while he returned to the bed, arranged the pillows as if they were cushions, sat to pour what must be wine.
When Simon held his hands open, reading text from empty palms, the doctor had grasped those hands, had spoken. "Simon."
Then Simon closed his eyes, and his fingers slackened.
"Simon," the doctor said. He sat down on the bed. "Simon. Snap out of it." He slapped him, lightly, chaffed his arms. "Simon." He slapped him again. "Goddamn it, man, wake up." He called for the nurse, called again, urgently, harshly, then bent over his friend, shaking the limp form. "Wake up," he said. "Come on now. Don't do this." He glanced frantically around the room, shook the form again. "Don't see yourself dead. Simon! Don't see yourself dead."
The staff stayed with him until he gave up. Then they removed the electrodes, rolled the equipment from the room. "We're sorry, doctor," the nurse said. "You tried."
The doctor stayed quietly by the bed for some time, head bent. For one brief moment he held his hands near Simon's face, fingers a breath from the temples, thumbs almost touching brows, as if he might raise the eyelids once more, just once more. But he didn't. He grasped the sheet and raised it up and over Simon's peaceful face. Then he shuddered and left the room.
Of all the excursions Simon made with Lillith, he liked best the canoe ride. He rowed leisurely, the sunlight gold waves amidst the blue, trees and banks repeating themselves beneath the ripples. On the center plank, the pup stretched, sleeping, small body occasionally trembling from some dream. On the front plank, Lillith prepared to read, the book resting open against her dark red gown. Simon loved her voice, blessed the fate that returned her sight, wished no more than that he and she could remain thus forever. He wondered if those poor souls on the bank envied the silent glide of the canoe. He saw them look his way occasionally, and once, from a familiar gesture briefly glimpsed, believed he knew one of the men ashore, but the light was deceptive.
"'And so,'" Simon heard, "'the dejected man sat again on the bench, the park empty, the sun fading. He buried his face in his hands. "I'm ugly. Oh god, why am I so ugly?" At the man's feet, the small cur whimpered, sat up, begging as if for a morsel.'"
"Don't stop," Simon urged. "Read on. It's just a story, Lillith. A touching story, but no more."


B.A.L.McMillan writes from Bloomfield, Missouri.

Copyright © 2005. Do not reproduce without permission.



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