Blurry Vision
Blurry Vision
It started on an ordinary afternoon. His mother pointed toward the clock hanging far away and asked, “What time is it?” He looked at it for a few seconds and replied, “How can I see it from here?” She assumed he didn’t know how to read an analog clock.
The next morning, she mentioned it to his father, who had returned from the city to see his beloved son enjoying summer vacation. “He can’t even tell the time.” His father didn’t ask another question. Instead, he slapped him. “What’s the point of studying if you can’t even read a clock?”
Then he pointed toward a herd of cattle grazing in the distance. “Count them.”
The boy stared into the horizon. “I can’t see any cattle.”
Another slap.
His father concluded that the boy couldn’t count either. Ironically, the same child regularly topped his class. Somehow, that wasn’t enough evidence that he knew basic arithmetic. When vacation ended, his parents told his teacher that he couldn’t read clocks or count properly.
The teacher paused.
“He can do both,” she said. “I’ve noticed something else. When he sits at the back of the classroom, he can’t read what’s written on the blackboard.”
The child thought sympathy would follow. But to his surprise, it was another slap on the back of the head. “Why did you not tell us?” his father yelled.
The diagnosis was simple: myopia. He needed glasses. Instead of relief, he felt fear. He knew exactly what would happen when he walked into school wearing spectacles.
The jokes started before the first class.
Nicknames.
Laughter.
"Double battery." "Four eyes." "Harry Potter."
They still echo in his ears, decades later.
After a week, the novelty faded, but the teasing never completely disappeared. He still played sports because that’s what children do. One day, the frame broke during a game. The walk home felt longer than usual. School had already humiliated him. Now he had to face another round of scolding at home.
Months passed. His father kept taking him to different eye appointments, hoping medicines would improve his eyesight. Nothing changed. The boy began to feel guilty. He could not watch his parents worry.
So he came up with a plan. During every eye test, the doctor asked him to read letters from a chart. He memorized them. Instead of reading what he could actually see, he repeated what he remembered. Each visit showed "improvement." His parents were relieved.
The doctor reduced the power of his glasses. The boy could barely see the classroom anymore. He couldn’t read the blackboard. He studied for hours every day because he had missed so much during class.
Everything looked blurry.
But his parents smiled after every appointment. To him, that felt worth it. The lie continued for nearly a year. Even the doctor was pleasantly astonished. He thought something was working, even though he didn't know what.
His father told this story at his office with a proud voice. A colleague of his, who had been scammed by his own child with the exact same lie, advised him to visit another ophthalmologist, just to be sure.
This new clinic used a different eye chart. The letters were unfamiliar. His little trick fell apart in seconds. The truth came out. What followed wasn’t understanding. It was another round of scolding and beatings.
Years later, glasses are gone, but the scars remained.