The Eyepatch: a fable

You have decided that if you ever lost an eye, for whatever reason, you would wear a black eyepatch. You would accept the piratical jokes, and maybe even embrace them. Get a parrot or something. You wouldn't get a fake eye or try to hide it with your hair or do whatever people who have lost eyes usually do. You would wear an old-fashioned black eyepatch. If they even sell such things anymore. It would give you character, maybe even distinction. People would know that you weren't afraid to draw attention to this thing about yourself that would always demand attention anyway.

And one day, improbably, some man would fall in love with you. He would look into your one good eye with so much love and affection that it would tire you out, having only one eye to stare into both of his, so full of love. Sometimes, you would lay your head on his shoulder, or his chest, just so that your eye could rest from looking into his eyes.

And when he had loved you for a while, a long while even, sometimes when you were comfortable and unguarded, he would ask you to take off the eyepatch. He would ask you to show him your scarred or missing eye. You would shake your head, maybe hiding your face behind your hands, your eye and your eyepatch behind closed fists. You would cry and cry from your one good eye and tell him No, No, No. You would walk around without an eyepatch all day, let every stranger see and look away, before you would let him look full on your injury even once, you would tell him.

Eventually, of course, you would show it to him. But you know that you would keep your good eye closed while you did. And you know that you would not let him mention it afterwards.