Mutation

It’s my goddamned left eye.

No, not the eyeball, that’s not the problem. There’s nothing wrong with it, aside from its 20/40 uncorrected vision and sometimes-dry cornea. Just like the right, it’s got a healthy macula and optic nerve, great fovial reflexes, and the last time I checked, the intraocular pressure was a perfectly normal 17.

I actually prefer the left eyeball to the right. Its iris has a more pronounced blunted-orange ring amid the swamp of jade that's flecked with charcoal gray, all encircled in steely blue. Think a blue-skinned, muted kiwi sliced open like a thunder egg, with a ring the color of bruised apple flesh poured roughly equidistant from the black center. The prominence of that sunburst makes my left eye look closer to the brown I’ve always wanted them both to be. Only the eye is too small to see any of that distinction, so it still screams the nondescript “hazel” to anyone except my ophthalmologist, who has examined it from less than three inches away. But I can deal with muddy messes for irises.

Yes, I’ll admit that I take issue with the paper-thin skin underneath it that allows the hue of two-day-old bruises to come through. No concealer I’ve ever tried can suppress the signs of a few too many all-nighters in my high school days. But normal people have those permabruises, too, and I can deal with them.

I guess the chalazion is a bit irritating, too. If I were to forego the eyeliner for a day and someone decided to squint at my left eye, they could see a small wart-looking bump disrupting the upper lashline about a fifth of the way in from the outside. But it’s not noticeable when it’s covered with makeup. It only irritates the cornea when it gets big, and over-the-counter artificial tears or Neomycin are readily available. And if I wanted it smaller or gone altogether, moist heat ten minutes twice daily for a week would do the trick. I’m just too lazy to care about something no one else will notice, and I have much bigger problems on my hands... er, on my eye.

It’s the green-blue vein lurking above my left eye that makes me feel like an alien.

It snakes across my browbone like a river, with peaks and valleys like the Cascades, finally disappearing beneath the ground and returning to its source a centimeter beyond the outer corner of my eye socket. It defies all attempts to conceal it; the shock of color seeps through like sunlight through stained glass. The only way I can get it to go away is to put my finger at the crest of my browbone and apply pressure. I watch the awkward color drain away, the landscape of my pasty skin temporarily untainted by the violent electric blue gash. But then I release the pressure, and it surges forth across the valley, jutting up and down like a bolt of sideways lightning. I can never get rid of it for long, and the method of removal itself makes me look like a moron. I can’t win.

Except in an oddity contest. This unsightly vein is the reason I have almost perfect control over my left eyebrow. So when I am intrigued, or skeptical, or expressing mild disapproval at the antics of children or freshman boys, I raise my left eyebrow.

And the first place his lips consecrate my face is just above my left eyelid. My left eyebrow creeps meekly up beneath the catalytic power of the most gentle of kisses. The warmth of his smile bores into my eyes, locked in his. I am the deer caught in the light of his celestial glow. He is marveling triumphant at the mystical powers he has over my body, and though he does not know it, they are many.

He is the Nino to my Amélie. It has to be destiny that I find someone who can tolerate, even grin with pride at the abomination that besmirches my face. Even if he’s not looking anywhere else. He’s not looking at the rest of me. There must be something wrong. He’s not staring at my chest like they usually do. No, he is different, he is my Nino. He was made for me, made for all of me, including my disfigured eye. The look he is beaming at me is that of an infant when his chubby, naked feet touch grass for the first time: marvel, wonder, infinite curiosity.

And then he cranes his neck back down to bless the other lid. He wants a duplicate expression of his power.

Panic. He won't get it. Because, not having a companion mutant vein, the right eyebrow can’t move independently of the left. They can move together, pulled up by the skin below the hairline, or the left can move by itself. But the right is powerless.

The rest of my body is powerless.