"Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis" by Lucy Zhang

Osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis

Husband decides to use my tooth to support my cornea. He needs to remove my canine, cut out a sliver of tissue drilled and fitted with a cylinder, implant it in my cheek to grow. These things need a blood supply before replacing the eye, the lamina more than a sheet more than a tooth, more than a composite held to the light which enters uninhibited. Suddenly I can see again. Paper belongs in recycling. I stare down the abyss of flattened Amazon boxes, torn envelopes, Pu-erhs softened from water, dripping dark tea stains along the cardboard. Husband streams CSGO. What are those? Nuclear power plants. Husband’s team is preventing terrorists from bombing the reactor. Who’s who? A gamer spins several times before falling off a building. Does falling always look so random? 
The shiny thing is the hot water kettle. The dull thing is the gravel. The lathe looks like a weapon or an amphibious assault ship, though it is not. I discover it operates in delicacies: preparing a component cut of copper, polishing ivory into ornaments, smoothing bowls to hold dates resembling wrinkled faces.  
Husband implants a tooth for my missing one, the one sacrificed for my eye. Husband says not to call it a sacrifice, because what is one tooth for eyesight? I see my face in a mirror. On the news, I watch VTOL airplanes lift off to who-knows-where. Some days, Husband’s face reminds me of cast iron. I strengthen my wrists by holding the pan up like a bat. Now that I can see, I can protect. I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I say as my hands shake. Why do you even need to wield it? I am the shield. Husband sounds dorky. I imagine Husband’s face as a cast iron pan, scrubbed of residue and re-seasoned, dragging my arm to the ground like a ball and chain. 
The unicorns come from narwhals, but I can’t see the resemblance. Gotta tweak the tooth in the eye, Husband suggests, finger sunk behind my cornea, fiddling with the bone composite, reorienting light until it reaches clarity. You can use a CNC machine with incredible precision, carve chess pieces out of milled aluminum, scrawl a signature at the back of an eyeball — it’s your masterpiece, I say, but watching the cutter draw is more interesting than being the canvas. 
I turn the Boggle hourglass before the sand falls completely. It’s a game: I try to trick time when I feel I have too little. I’ve memorized the sound of the last granules sliding to their end, practicing rapid wrist flips just before the top half empties. I can’t be sure if my eyes lie, so I look away, let my ears work. Out the window, I notice the sunlight has softened. Husband tells me light is just light. Meat softens when you tenderize it; carrots soften when you cook them; skin softens after you’ve peeled off calluses. But light is unchanging, regulated by the pupil, focused on the retina, transformed into electrical impulses you’ve interpreted all wrong. Husband pokes again at the cylinder. This is autumn. These are trees. I focus on the red, oranges, yellows. I focus until the last murmurs of sand wane, half drained and half filled, and by the time I turn away from the window, pupils dilating in the dark, I’ve forgotten how to listen.

Lucy Zhang

Lucy Zhang writes, codes, and watches anime. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, The Cincinnati Review, West Branch and elsewhere. Her work is included in Best Microfiction 2021 and Best Small Fictions 2021, was a finalist in Best of the Net 2020 and long listed in the Wigleaf Top 50. Find her at https://kowaretasekai.wordpress.com/. Twitter: @Dango_Ramen.

Headshot: Han Yu

Photo Credit: Staff