No.178. I Only Have Eyes for You. His afflicted left eye had cost him a month of his life (which wasn't getting any longer). It was a double-decker operation: first a muffling cataract had to be slid away and then a nice fresh new cornea--which of course had belonged to somebody else--was gently insinuated into his eye--where it refused to stay Have summarily detached itself, this outlaw cornea had to be reattached. There were litres of improving drops: anti-infection drops, anti-rejection drops (who couldn't use some of them?), an eye-patch, and admonitions against stooping, lifting etc. Couldn't read. Couldn't (of course) drive. It was a sluggish, moribund six weeks. In the course of which he squinted haplessly at a lot of eye charts. How hopeless their inscrutable texts! How maddening, the way they faded away, line by line, into into some wistful, unattainable distance!