Photostory

The Matter of the Butter

My father is in the kitchen. He’s going into town and is being given a list that he appears to commit to memory. ‘We need butter,’ says my mother. ‘And there’s not much bread left,’ adds my sister. As he walks out the door saying yes, yes, someone calls out. ‘And while you’re there, see if the fruit shop has any oranges. They’re better than the supermarket ones.’

My father goes out, gets in his car and drives the short distance into town. What happens there we never know exactly, but when he comes home, he has only remembered the bread and the oranges. So many times, so many weeks, he forgets the butter or the bread, or sometimes both. What happened while he was away?

We all know that nothing in particular happened. He was a thinker and a dreamer. He looked at the sky, thought about the weather, saw the rain coming, mulled over an incident in 1945; sorted out a way to start the motor mower– cranking it at a certain angle with just the right pressure; designed a new birdhouse in his head, watched the way the sun reflected in a puddle; solved an historical problem that the leaders of the free world were never able to sort out. What did the butter matter?

And he was always so astonished when he got home and they asked him where the butter was. His mouth would open, eyes raise to the ceiling or hand to his temple. ‘Hang ’n Tommy,’ he would say. ‘Not again!’

View From a White Bed

I’m lying on a flat, narrow bed with crisp, white sheets in a room with white, white walls. I’m here for Right Retina-Barrier Laser and Cryotherapy.

I’m staring at a perfectly square, white-frosted window in the ceiling. I mention to the blue nurse how bright it is, and he asks do I want some glasses? He comes back in a few minutes with what I can only describe as ski googles: straight across the top with paper-thin, yellow plastic lens, no frame. The white windows turn yellow.

Out of the corner of my eye I still see the white walls and imagine I’m skiing up them, across the ceiling (avoiding the windows) and down again, finally sliding to a halt on the narrow white bed.

I’m waiting, waiting. I’ve just come from the waiting room, where all the waiting patients have one bright yellow dot the size of a vegemite lid stuck above one eye saying, Right Eye or Left Eye, in big black print. I think─ don’t these health professionals know their left from their right? Every 5 minutes a blue nurse comes and puts a drop in my (right) eye. Very annoying. She just came at me again saying, ‘Just another drop, not long now, dear.’

The theatre is full of chrome legs, white metal arms, curled chords, swinging lights, shiny metal tables. I close my eyes, feel a pressure on my right eye: the anaesthetist is forcing it open. A face appears on my left: two beady eyes between a mask and a shower cap. It’s the surgeon!

The blood pressure monitor goes squeeze, squeeze on my arm. The anaesthetist says, ‘The right eye sign is over the left eye. Which is the right eye?’ The surgeon replies, ‘Do you mean the correct eye, or the actual right eye in relation to the left eye?’ Then they have a discussion about which eye is supposed to be operated on. Are they kidding me? Is this a case of misplaced dotification?

Left, right, left, fright . . . . as the sedative finally kicks in, I step into a delicious void.