I sat in the familiar eye exam chair and held a flat white plastic stick over my left eye. “Read the farthest line you can see,” Dr. Dave instructed. He had a slight Indian accent, but you could tell he had spent many years in this country.  The phoropter was up against my nose but I could tell no lenses had been put in place.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Dave but whatever is up there might as well not exist. I can’t even see that there’s something on the wall, let alone that there is a wall.” 

“Please, Madame President! Just Dr. Dhrish! Your friendly, neighborhood sight doctor! Dr. Dave is my Dad.” he chuckled. I could see why Angel enjoyed his company. He had an easygoing way about him and didn’t make any level of visual impairment feel like it was a big deal. “So you can’t see anything?” 

“No. It’s all just white.” 

“How about now? Tell me when you can see something.” Dr. Dhrish continued to flip the lenses until something started to come into focus. Black squiggles in Arabic? No. I can read and recognize Arabic. So that’s not it.  Or was that Sanskrit? No… but it kind of looked like Sanskrit.  What language was that? The script had very little distinction between letters like cursive would, but overall it looked like a straight line with peaks and valleys that ran above and below it.  Like an ECG reading, but more elegant and flowier.  Whatever this written language was… it wasn’t English. 

“Dr. Dhrish…I can see something on the wall now…but it’s not English.” 

“Ah! You can see that?! That’s wonderful! Angel! It’s a miracle! I think our blind President isn’t so blind anymore!” Dr. Dhrish was so joyful at my announcement that I could see a squiggle on a wall, much more exuberant than your average eye doctor.  

Although I couldn’t see Angel as I looked through the monstrous but friendly “eye doctor goggles” (the affectionate name I gave them as a child), I could feel his smile across the room. Wait? I could “feel a smile”? That’s new. I thought to myself. 

Dr. Dhrish continued to flip through the lenses. “Alright! Let’s put the stick down. Look through with both eyes. Tell me, how many lines can you see on the wall? Let’s start with this lens.” 

“One. And there’s gray fuzzies underneath.” 

“Got it, and what about this one…” 

“Wait?” I paused and silently counted. “Three?” 

“Uh huh… And how about now?” He continued to flip through more lenses. 

“Five? Wait… there were really that many lines below that?” 

“Yep and let’s keep going. How about now? Can you see tiny print now?” 

I remained silent until I could start to see the squiggles in the finest line. “Oh my gosh! What did y’all write with? It’s super fine and tiny and look like they’re straight lines but I can see two more lines beneath!”  

“That’s wonderful!” Dr. Dhrish exclaimed.  “I was thinking you would be at about this level.” 

He pulled the phoropter away. Everything went back to being fuzzy and dim.  “Bright light!” Dr. Dhrish exclaimed as he whipped out a retinoscope and got super close to my face.  I could feel the acid begin to make its way down the back of my eye and down my arm. “Ah!” I yelled, my eyes watering. For a moment, the low lights in the room flickered.  “Oh my…” Dr. Dhrish pulled the scope away and clicked his tongue. “I see what you mean, Angel.  This can’t be good.” 

“Right?” said Angel. “Seems like the entire nation loses power whenever she has one of those attacks.” 

“Hmmm…” Dr. Dhrish walked away to another part of the room. I could hear him scribbling something on a clipboard. “Fascinating…” 

I started to worry.  “Dr. Dhrish? Does this mean I need to be wearing sunglasses forever or, like, am I a vampire now? I can’t be in sunlight?” 

Angel and the eye doctor laughed at my comment. “Do you want to be a vampire?” Dr. Drish asked in an amused but kind voice as he walked over with something in his hand. “Look up at the ceiling. I have some eyedrops for you. This may sting a bit.” 

“No. I don’t want to be a vampire, but—” I jolted as he dropped some numbing eyedrops in my eyes.  I continued, “like, I feel like the sun, or bright lights, or any flashing lights makes the acid happen. It’s awful.  And the only time I get any little bit of relief is when I’m in total darkness.” 

“Uh huh…” Dr. Drish pulled over another one of his machines and asked me to rest my chin in front of another bright light. He bent down very close to my face and looked through the binoculars on the other side. “I see…” he said to himself. 

“Did we find something, Doctor?” Angel chimed in. 

“Just that, overall, Madame President has beautiful eyes. No diseases in the eyes. I can confirm that her natural eye doctor was correct about her having severe nearsightedness and a slight astigmatism. I couldn’t pick up any demyelination in the right eye either. Her eyes could use a bit of heightening but nothing a new pair of corrective lenses can’t fix. How does that feel, by the way? I have a very bright light shining into your eyes right now.” 

“Aw, thank you, Dr. Dhrish! And weren’t those eyedrops meant to dilate my eyes? My eye doctors always tell me that they can’t see my pupils because of how dark my eyes are.” 

“Since you said you don’t want to be a vampire, those eyedrops do not dilate your pupils. They actually relax the muscles around your eyes and slightly numb your eyes so they can adjust to bright light much easier. It’s a temporary fix and I can prescribe you some to carry with you whenever you feel like an acid attack is coming on. It doesn’t totally fix the problem, but it at least will help a little with the pain behind your eyes.” 

I was excited. “Thanks, Dr. Dhrish! That’s incredible!” 

“Of course, it’s the least I can do for our President. Just remember, when you feel like you’ve been looking too closely, look far away, then look at your immediate surroundings. Once your eyes have relaxed, you can go back to looking closely at things again. Do this several times a day. It’s best to have all views, just not close-up views, okay?” 

“Yep!” I felt like swinging my legs in the exam chair. 

“Alright. Now for the color test…” Dr. Drish pulled out his phoropter again and placed the many lenses over my eyes. He changed the projection from that of the squiggly lines to a similar color test where you’re asked what the image is underneath. “What do you see?” 

“Easy. That’s a square.” The various blue and orange circles made it very easy to make out a square among them. 

“Very good! And how about this?” 

Various hues of green and red circles appeared. “That’s an apple underneath.” 

“Beautiful. And what about now?”

The next projection was of tiny gray circles. While I could tell between the darkness and lightness of the gray circles, I couldn’t make out an image right away. “Ummm… I can’t really tell what you’re showing me. It all looks like light and dark gray circles, but I don’t see an image underneath.” 

“Ah… got it.” Dr. Dhrish continued to flip some lenses on the phoropter. “How about now?” 

“I still don’t see anything… sorry…” 

“Okay, let’s keep going… what about… now?” 

I stared at the wall. Was I really colorblind? I thought I could see just about every color in the rainbow… Wait? Was that… color…? The slightest red and purplish hues started to appear on the screen. I must be making this up.  I blinked twice. Nope. It’s definitely a color. “I think I see something, but it’s a color I’ve never seen before… Is it red? Purple? It’s so faint I can barely see it.” 

“Good job! Yes! Infrared and Ultraviolet. Wonderful. What’s the image of?” 

I tried not to squint.  I leaned into the phoropter and intentionally softened my gaze. “It’s of a heart.” 

“Yes! Great job! Alright. I think we’ll leave your lenses at Infrared and Ultraviolet for now until you’re ready for more colors. One more test next.” 

“There’s MORE COLORS!?!” 

“Oh, yes! Many many more colors, but for now all I’ve done is make you able to see the various scales of Infrared and Ultraviolet, and then heighten your ability to see the colors your natural eyes could see. Once you’ve adjusted to these two colors, come back and see me again. The other colors take a bit of adjusting to. Otherwise, we may have to employ Mr. Angel over there to pick up the pieces of your brain. No pun intended.” 

“What?!? You’re saying I could die if I see the other colors?” 

“Potentially. Or your brain could just be scrambled eggs. Humans technically COULD see all the other colors and survive it, but your eyes stopped transmitting so much information to your brains eons ago, after ‘the Incident’.”  I could see through the phoropter that Dr. Dhrish gestured around ‘the Incident’ in air quotes.

“The Incident?” 

“Ah…” Dr. Dhrish ran his hand through his thick, curly black hair. “That’s a whole story for another day. Angel… you can tell it to her sometime later, right?” 

I pulled away from the phoropter and looked behind me toward Angel’s voice. Angel was sitting in a chair. Although he was blurry, I could tell he was very relaxed. 

“Oh yes. I’m sure the Incident will come up in our conversations.” 

While I was turned away, Dr. Dhrish pulled the phoropter away and pulled up a chair and a small table. “Alright. Now for the last test. Look right at me. Don’t turn.” Dr. Dhrish snapped his fingers around my head.  “Uh huh. Good.” He then clapped his hands very softly around my head. “Good… yes.” Then he pulled over a tuning fork and hit it against the table. “Close your eyes. Can you hear this? Tell me when it stops.” 

“Hear it? Um… okay…” I listened very closely. It was such a faint sound that lasted the longest time. “I think it’s still going…” 

“Yeah. It takes a long time to stop. Keep listening.” Eventually, the sound was so faint, I just gave up and said, “I’m pretty sure it’s stopped now.” 

“Open your eyes,” he said. He held up the tuning fork. “Feel it.” The fork was still ringing. He sighed, “Human brains…they adapt too quickly and give up so easily…” 

“Wait?” I countered. “Aren’t you an eye doctor? Why did you just test my hearing right now?” 

“I’m a sight doctor. You didn’t know you could see sounds too?” 

“Huh?” 

“Yes. Sounds can be seen and colors have sound. They’re all just frequencies. My job is to make those frequencies visible to you. How ever are you going to lead a nation if you can’t see all of the things visible and invisible to the natural eye? I’m surprised you made it this far with the eyes you currently have.” 

He got up and walked to Angel. “Let me see those crushed glasses for a moment, Angel?” Angel gently pulled it out of his giant hoodie pocket and lovingly handed them to Dr. Dhrish. Dr. Dhrish looked at them with care. “Madame President, I know these glasses meant a lot to you.  But right now, if I repair them as they are, the new lenses I have would only be able to make the things you can already see clearer. They wouldn’t make visible what you can’t see or sense.” 

He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a pair of glasses of a similar shape to my previous ones — black cateye plastic rims on the top with gold metal framing on the bottom — but the difference were in the arms of the glasses.  The arms of these looked thicker with two metal contact points at the area where the arms bent around the ears.  “One moment. I need to talk with my glassmaker and optician.” He walked out of the room.

I turned to Angel. “He has a glassmaker?” 

“Oh yes! I didn’t tell you? Dr. Dhrish specializes in making glasses on-site. He typically does this in a couple of hours for someone, but I called in a special favor. So I think he’ll rush order yours.” 

“A COUPLE OF HOURS!?! Doesn’t making glasses take a few days? My turnaround time is typically two weeks! And compared to when I was a kid, that’s fast!” 

“Nope. That’s in the country where you came from. But in this country, everything is done very quickly. Look, I hear him coming back now.” 

“You can hear him!?!” I heard nothing. In approximately one minute, Dr. Dhrish was back. 

“Madame President, thanks for the wait. I know you have a meeting in an hour. Fortunately, my glass maker already had a set of lenses cut to the exact prescription and shape as these glasses that I have here. Do you think they look very close to your old ones?” 

I was amazed at everything. The speed of service, the fact that he just happened to have an answer for almost everything. “Angel… you did have a good doctor! Geez. I’m blown away.” 

Dr. Dhrish blushed and handed the glasses over to me. I tried them on. Everything looked just like it did before. It’s just that the arms on the glasses were slightly thicker than my previous glasses, though they surprisingly weren’t any heavier. 

“Yay! I can see again! It really is a miracle!” I jumped out of the exam chair. “Everything looks like it did before!” 

Dr. Dhrish had an awkward grin on his face and Angel looked like he was suppressing a laugh. “Um, Madame President… You have to turn them on to really see. Right now, all you can see is what your old glasses showed you. Double tap on the frame to wake them up.” 

I paused my celebration and double-tapped the right side of the frame. Instantly the room brightened and became immensely more colorful. I looked at Angel. Was he glowing? Like actually glowing? “Whoa…” I said as I couldn’t stop looking at everything. 

I looked at Dr. Dhrish. I hadn’t noticed it before, but he had another eye on his forehead. It was moving just as much as his other two eyes. “Whoa!” I jumped. “You, like, have another eye!” 

“Yes. I do.” He chuckled, “And you now have more eyes yourself. Those glasses should help you see what your natural eyes cannot see. Slide your finger across the left arm of the frames toward me.” 

I followed his instructions. “I can hear static coming through!” 

“Yes! You should start to hear the lower frequencies now. Now let’s do the same thing on the right side.” I followed suit and it sounded like I was flipping through radio channels at first. “I hear music stations and other radio stations. Is this a radio on the glasses—?” I stopped short when suddenly, I could see the words coming out of my mouth. It looked like the strange language in the first eye test. They were floating out of my mouth like puffs of breath on a cold day. They dissipated as they floated further into the room and fell silent. 

“Dr. Dhrish! I can see words! But it’s not English! It’s the squiggles from the wall!” I felt like a very little girl. This world was wonderful! His laugh was filled with joy. “And this is why I love what I do! But Madame President, with all due respect, you know you haven’t been speaking English this entire time?” 

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