“Macular Degeneration, early onset, I gather,” were the doctor’s condemning words. Young Elijah stared at the warping letters on the wall.
“What’s to be done?” he asked.
“See the world before it’s gone,” answered the doctor.
The fluorescent lights of the whitewashed office buzzed that irritating buzz of a million metal bees trapped in a far-off copper hive. They were too much for Elijah’s ears; the light was too much for his eyes. His brow furrowed to shield himself from their penetrating whiteness.
“There’s no surgery for it, or pill, or anything at all?” Elijah asked with a quiet solemnity.
“Not here, not today, not in either of our lifetimes, I’d reckon.”
“Is that it then?”
“I’ve nothing for you…” began the doctor, “except to say I’d like to track your progress over the coming months; perhaps then I can provide you with a more realistic timeline.” The doctor began for the door and then paused. “And I hope you find your peace with it soon. Take a good long look at your loved ones and finish any projects you may have lain about.” He opened the door. That, too, warped before Elijah’s eyes.
Elijah walked the warped road home, following blurry signs familiar to the town he called home for all 32 years of his life. A light breeze whistled its way through the clapping leaves of mighty sycamores. Rays of sun warmed his body as they beamed through the budding branches—what beauty, warmth, and vibrancy had chosen this day to grace him. Still, he shielded his eyes from the sun and stumbled over old roots on his path.
“Upon whom will I look? With whom will I travel?” Elijah asked himself. “Of the doctor’s orders, I have no loved ones; I have no peace to make. What is left for me is the thousands of unfinished projects and promises I have started. Canvases of unfinished paintings lay strewn about my home, etchings and prints sit unattended, and sketches and charcoals lay loose across the floor, collecting the dust of forgone promises to myself.”
He fiddled with his key as he tried to unlock the door. Too long—too long was the time it took him to find the keyhole; longer than it had ever taken him. He stepped into his home again, but everything was unfamiliar. Everything was exactly where he had left it, but how could he recall where he had set anything? Had he ever needed to remember where he put anything, or was he able to find whatever he needed by only looking?
He lay in bed and slept, and when he woke, he could not even be sure whether it was day or night. So, he just lay there for a while when his mind began to run. He recalled all the beautiful places that would soon be unseen, the foremost of which was a small lake his family used to travel to. To him those places were already gone, what remained was but memory, for even if he were to return, the fading, warping lights before him would have failed him his love for it. So again, his mind raced about himself.
“What to make of myself before I die?” He thought.
“Relax,” he interrupted, “this isn’t death, it’s blindness. I could live for a great many years yet.”
“But should it be worth it? Is life without the beauties of art and nature worth living?”
“There’s more to beauty than what is offered by sight alone. What about music?”
“That’s beside the point; I’ve gotten off track. To where was I meant to go with this thought?”
“To make something of yourself? Ah, yes, that was it,” he answered.
“You are an artist. You create by sight, so before you lose it all, what shall you finish?”
“My magnum opus.”
“Which shall be?” he caught himself.
“Flawed in every capacity,” the voice in his mind was snide.
“Then we try whichever and see what sticks?”
“What sticks?”
“Try every medium we’ve given our hands to over the years, try and see which turns out the best.”
“And of what shall be our magnum opus?”
“Anything with beauty that I may capture it at last. Lightning in the bottle.”
“A tree? The lake or my parent’s old Lakehouse.”
“Perhaps,” he smiled at the memories of the lake—the light lapping of little lavender waves snapping against the stony shore—it was beautiful. “Yes, perhaps, let’s try it!”
And so up Elijah shot from his bed. He fumbled about with canvases to find one big enough that he might see, then taking up his paints, he painted the place from his memory.
It is often in these memories that we find the idyllic moment. It is this we latch onto, forgetting all other hardships or pains. Like the joys of looking back on great adventure only to forgo the memory of how bad your feet hurt from all the walking. This was the downfall of Elijah’s first work.
The scene was magnificent, though he struggled a great deal to make straight his lines. It truly could have been his magnum opus, but he hated it. In all its glory—mighty mountain majesty cradling a small bluish-purplish lake with a serene, illuminated cabin seated quaintly beside an old tree—his father fishing on a distant dock as his mother watched he and his two sisters play in the water, skipping stones—fluffy white clouds settling themselves on distant misty peaks. All this there was and more, and still, Elijah had never despised a painting more. For it was not true.
“It wreaks of fake,” he thought, “though how could I know if I can hardly see it.”
“Is this not the serenity you’ve borne in your mind of this place, a perfect capturing of the purity of your youth?” he questioned himself.
“Purity of my—what purity had I in my youth? I was a disobedient child and grew up to be a disobedient man. I pushed this serenity away and it was gone forever. These figures in my painting are no more—they never were. Such perfection sickens me.”
“And rightly so,” said he to himself, “such perfection cannot exist. For what is beauty without flaw? Is it not our brokenness that makes us who we are? Is it not this brokenness that makes our lives beautiful?”
“Then that must be the subject of our magnum opus.”
“Brokenness?”
“Yes, and perhaps another medium. Charcoals to display the contrast of darkness with the light we cannot reach,” he explained to himself.
“Yes, beautiful, to capture the truth of darkness of this world.”
And so, Elijah dug through old paper pads and broken, cracked, and worn charcoals and began a new piece. Upon a great, big sheet he imagined an alleyway, where the only light was hidden by an old torn shirt that hung by a clothesline between two black brick buildings. The sketch was so dark and gloomy, Elijah had great difficulty seeing it, but still, in his mind’s eye and the sure experience of his hand, another masterpiece was made.
It was a sad piece where a lonely individual writhed in pain alone on the dank alley floor. There was no one to comfort him, there was no one to empathize. Rats scurried out from under a dumpster and broken glass dusted every windowsill.
“Such misery depicted so beautifully, surely this shall be our magnum opus!”
“I hate it,” Elijah answered himself.
“You really, truly hate it?”
“I really, truly do. There is no beauty in this, my lines are straight, my composition is strong, but there is no life in such a piece. I look at this, and though my eyes fail me, I find no peace, no hope, no beauty. What is a masterpiece without beauty but coal on a page. Better would it be to burn than admire. Such sickness finds no cure.”
“What then shall your magnum opus be?” Elijah wondered.
“I shall have none, but the serenity and the brokenness that both sickeningly stain my life.”
“Why not create a piece with both?”
“A masterpiece cannot have both. Perfect peace cannot live in the presence of misery. Better would I to never touch a brush or pen again than to blend water with fire.”
And such was his vow, and for a long time, years, he could not bear to touch a brush or pen or vine or any carving tool, for as long as his sight diminished, he could not bear to answer the promises his unfinished works beckoned of him.
During those years, Elijah shut himself in his home, never speaking with neighbors, friends, or anyone who might have shown their truest care for him—never speaking with anyone but himself. He contested himself as to whether the light and the darkness could be mixed, but the answer always came out to be no.
At last, the day came where darkness muddied his sight.
“You have lost all of your vision,” repeated the doctor, but Elijah gave no answer. This was the day he had awaited for years, and now the innermost longing of his heart was to see the earth and her many beauties again. In the quiet of his home, he wept over the loss of his sight, pleading to God that it should be returned.
“What little tranquility of my youth I enjoyed was lost forever to this darkness. Where is my sight? Where is my redeeming?”
“Your chance to redeem the mistakes of your life is forfeit. You had it, and you let it pass by like a brush with no paint,” he answered himself.
“My life has been painted once, and before it could set, the paint has washed away. Oh, how I long to behold beauty again! How I long to be redeemed of this darkness!”
“Your opportunity for redemption has passed.”
“I may have it yet.”
“How?” he fought in his mind, “Think of your works, your family you’ve abandoned, friends you’ve pushed away. How might you find forgiveness now when you cannot find where you left your keys.”
“My eyes may yet be restored to me, should God will it so.”
“What God would let you see when such blindness serves so clear a punishment.”
“The God of light that conquered darkness,” Elijah snapped.
“Light that con—what do you know of the meddling of light and darkness when, were you not the one who denied light its throne and darkness its way?”
“I—”
“Were you not the one who set aside perfection for a misery he could not handle?”
“I could not handle perfection because it cannot belong to me so long as I am muddied,” contested Elijah
“Muddied and irredeemable.”
“The image of light and darkness wars in me, I am a mixed paint!”
“What blind man can unmix the paints he’s already blended? Light muddied by darkness is an abomination. You are an abomination!”
“If I only had my sight so I might see what beauty could be made.”
“Why do you still look for beauty? You couldn’t see it when you had eyes; why would you be able to see it now?”
“Because now I understand my loss!” he cried. These were the first and only words he had spoken aloud.
“And what? To have your sight returned would cause you to not take beauty for granted? In time you’d be no different than you were.”
“No…” Elijah’s inner tumults had ceased as if a command had been ushered amongst roaring waves, and they obeyed. “No, because the beauty of darkness is when the light shines through it again. My redemption is the lost beauty I have longed for.”
“But you understand now your sight will never return?” he asked himself incredulously.
“I… believe I do.”
“Then what may be your redemption.”
“My redemption is this: I see more beauty now than ever when my eyes worked.”
“But you cannot paint it or sketch it with pencil or vine,” said he to himself with pity.
“I’ve one more medium to try; though it may not be my favorite, it may soon become the only.”
Elijah, knowing his way now through his home better than with his sight, set off and collected a soft, smooth plank of wood. Gathering his etching tools, he got to work on a new piece.
For days he slaved over the smallest of his pieces, neither knowing when to sleep nor when to rise. Using his hands, he felt the image as he carved it to make sure every iota of detail would not be misplaced. It was the most challenging piece he ever created, though it was substantially less than his usual work; however, such is the way with small things.
He titled the piece The Two Faces. One man sat in a lone chair. Four empty chairs sat beside him. The man in the chair featured two faces, one shrouded in darkness, the other in light. Between the two faces was a deep gouge where the wood had splintered—a mistake brought about by dull tools and great force. The face shrouded in darkness was now separated from the face of light by light itself, but Elijah saw an opportunity to mend this divide.
Taking up his tools again, he cleared away the darkness surrounding the dark face. He angled its gaze now toward the marvelous light, and in doing so, the face of darkness was illuminated as if it had never been dark. And it was beautiful—though he could not see it, he knew it to be so.
There is one last detail to recall about this etching: the face of the man was Elijah’s own, conjured from his memory, and more accurate than any seeing artist might have done. The piece was done—no bigger than the palm of a grown man’s hand, it was done.
Elijah took the etching, covered its surface in ink, and pressed it with a mighty force against the page. When the block was removed, the image remained, and the light of the white paper contrasted starkly with the black of the ink, and the two could never be mixed. But Elijah could not love the print, for it was of no value to him; it was in the block he had carved he found his joy, for by the gentle touch of his hands, he could know his masterwork.
Elijah’s print, over the years, had found its way into a museum. The piece was so well-loved that it inherited a room of its own. Only two other pieces hung beside it—an eerily serene painting of a family enjoying a mountain lake, and a black charcoal of an alleyway, so obscured by the dark, even the details seemed invisible. As an old man, Elijah came into the gallery dedicated to his work. Though he could not see his work, he stood in the room and knew the works belonged to him.
Now, in the gallery was a curator who had grown to know and love the pieces as he studied them day after day. Unaware Elijah was their creator, the curator approached the blind man and said to him, “May I describe these pieces to you?”
“Please,” answered Elijah.
“On the left, we have a grand mountainous masterpiece—”
“I know the piece,” interrupted Elijah, “tell me what you see.”
“Well, on the shore—”
“No,” he interrupted the curator again, “tell me what it is you see.” Still unsure of the blind man’s meaning, the curator attempted a new answer.
“It is a masterpiece,” he began, “but this one I hate, for it beckons within me some unattainable perfection, and though every brushstroke is well intended to produce beauty, it is sickening to see no hope in such perfection. Of the one on the right, I hate it too. Darkness enshrouds a man enduring great suffering, and though such pain may ring truth, it still offers me no hope.”
“And what of the one in the middle?” asked Elijah.
“It is no masterpiece, but it is this that I love. Hope radiates from a divided man as he looks to the light descending upon him,” answered the curator, but in his answer was something that surprised Elijah: the sound of a grown man breaking. The curator’s voice quivered, and his nostrils sniffed—if only Elijah could have seen his tears.
“You know the man who made these was blind as I am?”
“Was he indeed?”
“He spent long attempting to paint with colors mixed together and to create light with only coals.”
“Did you know him?” the curator asked.
“Very well,” answered Elijah, tears now befalling his own face. But the curator saw Elijah’s tears and was deeply moved that such a deep connection could be formed with a blind man over the invisible.
“Sir, what is to see a thing?” said the curator, “A blessing perhaps, but what a greater blessing it is to know a thing, to love it, and not to have seen it. You bear on that faith in your heart that it is beautiful.”
“These works are my own,” Elijah confessed. The curator fell silent, then after a moment, he hugged the old, blind man and whispered to him.
“And what heart-aching masterpieces they are.”
— M. D. Eaton
Inspired by Russ Ramsey’s Van Gogh has a Broken Heart.
