Henry Rasof
AN APOCRYPHA
One day I took off my glasses and beheld the world as it is, a
new world, what it always was, what it never was. There was a
mild euphoria, as I took in the sides of vision I had not seen
since I was five, that perhaps I had never seen. And the world
that was, that seemed as if it had always been, became a story, to
tell my friends.
I felt strange, though, as when in a fever everything is out of
focus. All that was was a general outline, a sense of shapes, of
forms moving into other forms, without distinctions from each
other. As the world became vague I ran out
to
greet and be
greeted by my friends and found the world warm, and soft, and
not altogether unbelievable, separated as I was from it by my
VISIOn.
The story, as I began its telling, was long and detailed, and I
told it over and over. But it was not my story, my own story, nor
was it mine to tell, though I was telling it anyway.
It
was a
familiar story, one told before, though not necessarily the same
story.
Unable to see me clearly my friends drew near. Unable to see
my friends as they drew nearer I let go my eyes and watched my
friends interact with each other and with the story as it was being
told, the story of a story being told, of seeing in a new kind of
way, of friends drawing near, and nearer, to me, to see me, to see
me seeing them, if in fact I was seeing them at all, for me
to
see
them, as they were seeing me. I watched something detach from
myself, detached from myself, as something detached from
myself, as I detached from the world, detaching my self from
myself and from the world, detaching from the world I had
created, or at least always known, and always, so it seemed, seen,
or not seen, however you look at it, entrusting it to my friends,
who I no longer could see as I had seen them, as it were. But
because it was not my story, my own to tell, I let it all go. I let go
the story and threw away my eyes, again and again, until I
entered the world, the same world that was, but this time
through another entrance. Then I relaxed my hold on my
friends, and they came to me, closer than ever before.
