START:
Day 1 of being double-lidded
I woke to the sound of banging on my door. “NAOMI, GET UP. My word, the girl sleeps so much.”
My alarm had failed to ring. Or rather, I had forgotten to set it. Realizing what day it was, I jumped out of bed: this was the day I would have double eyelids.
I washed my face, brushed my teeth and eagerly pulled out the magical tape with anticipation. The tiny things were lined up like soldiers. I plucked one out.
Gingerly handling the uncooperative sticker, I closed my right eye and – wait, where exactly was I supposed to put it? Right on the edge of my lid? A little bit above that? Even higher? To the middle or to the lateral side? Should I Google first? No, the stickiness would be affected. So I stuck it to the middle of the middle and opened my eye.
I looked at this new version of my right eye in the mirror and – WHY AM I STILL A MONOLID?!!
The sticker had completely been engulfed in the folds of my eyelid and become invisible. What was this? Was I doomed to be a proud monolid for the rest of my life? Never get the chance to see and experience the world from the other side?
Determined otherwise, I Googled it. At some point my mother came in and said, “Maybe you need longer ones. Maybe use two.” The woman might have a point.
I tried what Google told me. I tried using two. I even tried three. My left eye seemed to agree with the tape and produced a significant and very visible crease with just one piece. But my right eye, no matter what I tried, persisted in its monolidism.
I was a chimera of half-double half-monolid. An unnatural-looking being with one large and one small eye. I recalled a scripture in the Bible: No man can serve two masters.
I stripped the tape from both my eyelids.
STATUS:
Failed to launch
END:
Day 1 of being double-lidded
START:
Day 8799 of being a monolid
This post first appeared on Nomes Art Corner.
Cover image art © Naomi Sutanto
About the author
Naomi Sutanto is an artist with a guinea pig named Latte (because he looks like an espresso!) and another guinea pig named Gandalf.