Monday, January 31, 2005

Yoko Meshi



"Yoko Meshi" - a reading (on YouTube)


Yoko glanced at the magazine lying on the table. Though she couldn’t make out the title, the woman was pretty. She was tempted to pick it up and breeze through it with her legs crossed one over the other at the knee, her hair cascading over one shoulder as she flipped it casually, disinterestedly, past stories on how to attract and keep a boyfriend with better sex. Instead, she straightened in the chair, eyes forward, knees together, hands resting on the bag on her legs, her hair firmly pulled into the ponytail her mother told her all respectable women wore.

“The doctor can see you now, Ms. Meshi,” the assistant said from the open doorway. “Right this way.” Yoko smoothed her beige skirt as she stood. She followed the perky young woman in the short, black skirt and pink top that reminded her more of a bright, extended version of the lycra bras she found so comfortable and plentiful here than anything she would wear out in public.

“Right in here,” the woman gestured to the exam room. “The doctor will be with you in a moment.”

Yoko sat in the chair in the corner by the modular desk, tugging her skirt over her knees then straightening her blouse to make sure all the buttons were fastened and nothing provocative was peaking through her blouse, camisole or bra. Once she was certain she was arranged, she sat with her eyes down, waiting for the door to open, attempting to ignore the reclining examination chair she knew she would be expected to climb into, having no idea how she could without revealing more than was proper. In her mother’s voice, she chastised herself for not choosing a woman doctor. She had hoped this act of rebelliousness would help her fit in, would make this alien world more understandable. Why had she left Honshu? But he was supposed to be the best. All the women at the office said so, some who had come over just months before Yoko had. None had her trouble reading the language now, though they all admitted they had started worse than she had.

After a moment, the door opened and the doctor strode in, chart in his left hand, his right extended. “Good morning, Ms. Meshi. I’m Dr. Rose.” He reached his hand toward her. She not so much shook it as touched it briefly. “What seems to be the problem today?” he asked as he sat at the desk.

“I am having a problem with my vision,” she said shyly. “I can see everything clearly, but when I try to read, the words do not want to come into focus.”

“Hmm.” He scribbled a note in her file, then gestured toward the chair, “Why don’t you sit up here and we’ll see if we can find out what’s going on.”

Careful to keep her legs together, she wriggled into the examination chair, smoothing her skirt after she was positioned properly. The doctor dimmed the lights. Reclining in the chair in the dim light, she felt vulnerable. The air felt warm. The doctor handed her an instrument to cover one eye and asked her to read a set of Roman letters reflected in a mirror in front of her. Instinctively, her brain scrambled to make sense of the decreasing size of the letters non-existent columns.  Finally, she settled on trying to read the rightmost letter of each row, top to bottom though they didn’t align. “E, S, U, V, F, I think,” she said uncertainly.

“Ok, can you try that again, but instead of reading down, try reading across from left to right. Start on the last row.”

Now her mind fought hard to align the chart in a way that made sense. Letters seemed to slide out of her field of view. “N, uh, F, maybe.” As she continued to struggle, she began to feel dizzy. Finally, she closed her eyes. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Ok, let’s try something different,” the doctor said in a reassuring tone. He turned out the light creating the letters. “I know I have it here somewhere,” he murmured, “Ah, here it is.”

He clanked around the machinery a moment then turned on the light again. This time when the letters appeared, they were arranged differently, a single, large “E” on the right with each column to its left shrinking in size while adding letters. “Try the leftmost column.”

“S, V, N, F, E,” she said without hesitation.

“Mm-hmm.” The doctor scribbled something in her file. “Ok, let’s try the other one again, only this time I’m going to have you look through these lenses.” He maneuvered a set of adjustable arms supporting thick, black goggles with small lenses until they rested on her nose. He made an adjustment to center the lenses on her eyes, then flipped some switches on either side. As he flipped a final switch, the lenses over her left eye went dark. “Try and read that.”

Something about the lenses changed the way she saw the lettering. With the help of whatever he had done, the odd arrangement made sense to her. She read off the bottom row quickly.

“Now the other eye.” He flipped a switch that covered her right eye and uncovered her left. She read the letters as easily with that eye as the first.

“What is wrong with my eyes?” Yoko asked, as he rolled his chair back and jotted more notes in her file.

 Dr. Rose smiled at her. “You’re eyes are perfect, 20/20. What you have is something called a ‘Cultural Astigmatism.’”

Yoko frowned.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. In most people, it’s something that fades on its own, usually after a couple months. In some cases, it can be stubborn and last a few years.”

Yoko frowned more deeply.

“Fortunately, there is something we can do to speed the process along.” He handed her a set of dark pink tinted glasses. As she put them on, he slid his chair around in front of her and gently adjusted the way they sat across her nose and ears. His touch was light, nearly a caress. It made her shiver against her will. As he pulled his hands back, she no longer felt uncomfortable.

“Can you read the bottom line?”

After an instant of her eyes adjusting, Yoko found she could.

“What we can do is have you wear these. The lenses are plain glass, so they won’t hurt your eyes or alter your vision.  I’ve found the tinting helps in cases like yours. The tinting is temporary; it will fade completely after about six weeks. By the time it disappears, you should have no trouble reading at all.”

Yoko looked at the doctor to see whether he was trying to play a joke on her. What she found was that with the new glasses, he reminded her of her father in a completely alien, yet recognizable way. She felt much more comfortable with him now.

As he brought up the lights in the office, she slid from the chair and offered her hand. “Thank you, doctor.”

He took her hand and smiled. “That’s why I’m here. I’ll want to see you again in six weeks. You can make an appointment with my assistant on your way out.” He released her hand from his. Her hand felt warm from his touch.

As she left, she reached back and released her hair from the confines of its ponytail. As it started to fall, she shook it free until it cascaded down her back. Perhaps she could learn to view this foreign place as her own after all.


© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

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