Open Angle (fiction, abridged)

I arrived on the 5A.M. flight and it was still dark when I entered the house. The only light that was on was the one over the staircase. The smooth granite floors were softly illuminated. The winding staircase looked like it was floating in a gleaming sea of darkness. All in all, it had the effect of a surreal stage and lighting design. I was then a lighting design apprentice. I made a mental note of the properties – visibility, safety, and cost – of the lighting fixtures I was going to propose for the play I had just been recruited to be a part of. I noted the possible locations and positions of the lights on the stage.


I dragged my suitcase across the floor and was about to lift it as I reached the stairs when I was startled by a dark figure in the living room. I dropped my suitcase in surprise and the figure, seated on the sofa, turned to my direction briefly before facing the window again. It was my dad.

I knew that he didn’t see me. He was almost completely blind by then and only went by his memory. I will explain this later. He also couldn’t hear very well without his hearing aid, which he only wears to church or to the court, so I decided to walk toward him instead.

When I neared him, I realized that he was speaking in a low, conversational voice. I thought at first that he was addressing me, and then I realized that he was addressing someone else. That is, it very much looked and sounded like he was talking to someone named Buddy, the name his friends called him, when he was young. And then I saw that he had a cigarette in one hand and a glass of brandy in the other!

Everyone in the house – the two household staff, the driver, and the caregiver – vehemently denied giving my Dad cigarettes or pouring him brandy. The very idea appalled them, and they didn’t hide their opinion over the absurdity of the accusation.

The caregiver, who had always been sensible and practical, and neither given to superstition nor the supernatural, after much prodding from the others, finally declared: “It was Buddy who gave him the cigarette, poured him brandy, and did other things besides.”

The caregiver was right in that matter, but he had to be dissuaded on others. I told him who “Buddy” was. But it turned out that he was correct when he said that Dad wasn’t talking to himself “in a multiple personality disorder kind of way,” as we were also later told, although this, too, was explored extensively by the doctors whom we eventually consulted.

I told the neurologist that Dad had been having a hard time adjusting to his loss of eyesight, and had been depressed for a long time. I told him about Dad’s behavior at the hotel, where he was confined for several days after the surgical procedure.

It had been a week since the surgery. I had barely slept when I sensed my dad awaken from what I suspected wasn’t exactly the most fitful of sleep. I had been trying, for the last several days, to get used to the sight of him – eyes covered in plaster and bandages – and was very relieved when the bandages were taken off the day before.

I heard him groaning. I turned to his side to watch him very slowly lift his legs and drop them heavily to the carpeted floor. Then, he pushed down on his feet and tried to maneuver a sitting position. It was excruciating to watch. He fell back on the bed a number of times until he somehow managed a most awkward sitting position – his body tilted to the left, his head almost dropping to his shoulder, and his hands trembling, as he tried to plant them on the bed more firmly. He straightened himself up a bit and faced the wall.

I watched him stare at the wall. The room was bathed in soft light still, even if the sun had risen probably an hour ago already. The light softened his features too, gave his skin a kind of glow, made him look so much younger and healthier than he actually was.

Good thing we had opted for hotel, rather than hospital confinement, I thought. The doctor just came to visit once a day. The hotel was located right across from the bay. We had no view of the sunrise since the room faced the Manila Bay, the idea being that since we’re staying in a hotel called Sunset View, we might as well pay for that view. This was also one of the post-surgery treats we had promised our father, and ourselves – a spectacular view of the sunset. We did not factor in the possibility that he might not see anything at all right after the surgery, that his eyes would still be bruised and traumatized, and will take some time to recover, if at all.

Dad straightened himself up further. I was tempted to stand and assist him, but wasn’t sure if that gesture was going to be appreciated. So I just watched him -- no, watched over him . When he had stabilized himself, he let out a deep sigh, and then I saw him reach both arms for the wall, or something, someone by the wall.

“Dad,” I called out to him. “’Tay,” I called out even louder, to snap him out of what I thought was a dream. He continued to ignore me. And then I saw him nodding, heard him talking. I got up from bed and walked over to him, stood in front of him. He just looked past me. I peered into his eyes, and they looked very much like they were seeing eyes, but they weren’t seeing me.

To be fair, the surgeon had never promised anything about eye sights being restored, only, at the most, the physical eye being preserved.

“Surgery, if you take this option, and I am hoping you will, would involve either laser treatment or making a cut in the eye to reduce the intraocular pressure, what we call the IOP. The type of surgery doctors recommend usually depends on the type and severity of the condition. But the point of the procedure is to help lower the IOP, especially when medication is no longer sufficient,” the doctor had explained the week before, holding up colored photo prints of cross-section images of my father’s corneas and irises.

I had stood behind my father’s wheelchair, and every now and then whispered to him what the doctor was saying.

“We have several options daw. Based on your tests, you are a good candidate for a procedure that has proven very effective for patients with a similar case. Basically, the procedure will involve creating a kind of bypass in your eye, so that the pressure will be controlled, and then the eye can slowly start working again! This is all very good news!” I pressed his shoulders and half-hugged him for emphasis.

“Normally, we would recommend laser surgery first, before filtering microsurgery. But if the eye pressure is very high, and the optic nerve is badly damaged…” He made circular motions over a certain part of the picture with a laser pointer.
The doctor paused, in mid discussion, to give me time to digest the information and to relay it to my dad.

And, I translated: “The doctor’s saying that there are several variations to the procedure, but that your type of glaucoma, a rare one in this country, and common among Caucasians, would seem to require a certain type of surgery too. Kasi, you’re a mestizo!”

The doctor raised his eyebrows, the only sign of impatience and incredulity he allowed himself. And then he continued. “With laser surgery, we use a tiny but powerful beam of light, right here, basically, to make several small scars in the eye’s trabecular meshwork…”

Me: “That’s the eye’s drainage system daw…”

“Yes, actually, it is the eye’s drainage system,” the doctor said, and I tried not to show how embarrassed I was that he could hear everything I was whispering to my dad after all. “And the scars we make will help increase the flow of fluid out of the eye,” he said, now making short slow waving motions under the eye.

He paused again to give me time to translate, but I let him continue.

“On the contrary, the filtering microsurgery would entail, yes, creating a ‘drainage hole’, with the use of a small surgical tool, instead of a beam of light. We perform this, sometimes, after laser surgery does not successfully lower eye pressure, or if the pressure begins to rise again after some time...”

Me, in a much lower voice: “So, the procedure basically ensures that the drainage system in your eye works properly, so it won’t clog and increase the intraoccular pressure. You need daw to release some of the pressure, in the form of fluids, tears…” And at this point, my dad turned to me with a questioning look, but I continued. “So, yes, the process involves keeping the tiny passages clear and… well, healthy that way, so it can let light enter and the eye can do what it is supposed to do…”

The doctor started turning off the viewing board, and turned to switch the room lights on, still elaborating on the procedure. He returned to his table and faced us.

“The surgery will preserve the eye, the physical properties, however, it cannot reverse vision loss,” he said, waiting for me to respond.

“Dad, the procedure will preserve what eyesight you still have, and there’s still apparently a good amount of that, it’s just sort of covered by all the pressure, which the procedure will reduce permanently, so that the eyesight is maximized, and then little by little, maybe even in very micro levels so that you’ll hardly sense it, I mean that’s why the procedure is called microfiltering, so the eye, as the pressure decreases, adjusts, little by little, in vey micro levels, to the cleared up passages, after being so used to clogged ones for a long time, because it will take some time to adjust to the absence of something that’s been there for a long time, and then, yes, little by little, in very micro levels, the eye will slowly start to see… You’ll just have to be very patient, really.”

“I just want to know that I’ll be able to read again, look at pictures of my wife, enjoy my daughter’s work” he said, addressing the Opthalmologist.

The surgery took place at 7 in the morning the following day. The orderlies wheeled Dad out of the room at six, and by eight-thirty, I was called in to the recovery room. My dad was in a wheel chair, both of his eyes were bandaged shut.

The doctor came out of the lab and told me that although both eyes had to be covered, they did not actually touch Dad’s left eye, that it was only actually the right eye they operated on. He explained that the left eye did not have any vision left at all, so surgery would not have done anything, and might have only traumatized it further. The right eye, however, still had about 8% of vision left, except that the functioning parts are outside the core, that is why he could not see complete images, rather he only sensed them when there is movement, so that, at best, he could see the outlines or the silhouettes.

To my dad, I said: “The surgery was successful! The doctors were able to save your eyes from being eaten up by the disease! They will slowly recover from the scars of the surgery and then very slowly, little by little, the eyesight that is left will be put to work again.”

To me, the doctor said: “We should really show your dad the whole picture, so the process of adjustment can be facilitated.”

He would never be able to see again, the doctor said, in as plain and stark a manner as he could.

So I knew we had a problem when I heard Dad saying, that morning, a week after surgery, that his vision, indeed, was back, one hundred percent! Praise the Lord, he even added.

Hallucinations were one thing, but this, this was something else.

I decided to stay in my dad’s room that fateful weekend, so that I could observe him. Earlier that day, his caregiver had said that he had overheard Attorney and Buddy talking again, about taking a trip, visiting a friend who lived three towns away from the city. The caregiver said that he was worried about what my dad would do, or what Buddy would do to my dad.

So I volunteered to watch over Dad, hold vigil, and record the whole thing, in order, finally, to settle the matter with the caregiver.

By twelve midnight Dad was snoring, while I was still at work on a lighting design for an upcoming play. I motioned for his caregiver to retire for the night as well, and he gratefully left the room. I locked the door after him.

The room had two windows, one facing the east and another one facing the south. Between the two windows sat my dad’s old desk, and on top of it my mom’s picture. I moved the desk so that I could continue to work and chat on my laptop while frequently glancing over to where Dad was, snuggled now under the covers, and snoring rather loudly.

I continued to chat with my mentor over YM, and excitedly explained to him my proposal: how to position the lights, where to locate them, so that when they’re all turned on, the effect is the opposite of illumination.
When I glanced over to Dad, he was no longer there.


I swear I did not doze off, I couldn’t possibly have. Even if I did, I know that it was only for a few minutes, because my last chat response said so.

Needless to say, nobody believes me. Needless to say, we looked all over for him: In the house, in the village, all over town, all over the country! We have been looking for four years! Four years.

It’s very hard for me still. Although, in many ways, yes, perhaps also the best. The best for me, and for everyone concerned. I know, I understand where people come from when they accuse me of these horrible things, because it is true that I have been, well, enriched by the situation. But how can I defend myself? How can I tell people of just what my dad and I went through after my mom’s death? Why should I even bother?

I still come home as often as I can, to check on the properties, the caretaker. To warm the old house, so to speak.

I still prefer to take the 5A.M. flight, and it is dark when I enter the house, the only light that is on is the one over the staircase, the smooth granite floors are softly illuminated, the winding staircase looks like it is floating in a gleaming sea of darkness.