Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalu, 1928. Screenshot (public domain).

Cataracts

About a month ago, and then again two weeks after that, I had surgery at the NHS to remove cataracts – those are clouded or yellowed lenses behind the iris and pupil. I’m a bit young for this common procedure, but sun exposure hastens cataract formation, and I lived for fifteen years in Southern California and five more in Florida. I didn’t know I had them until my optician told me, but I should have known – I hadn’t needed sunglasses in years and my night vision had gotten bad.

Cataract removal is simple. The surgeon starts by anaesthetizing the eye with drops and propping open the lid, like with young Alex in A Clockwork Orange. A scalpel slices and dices the cataract, and then a sort of vacuum cleaner sucks it away. After that, the doctor inserts a new lens. It sounds grim but wasn’t. In fact, it was like an acid trip. Lying back in the chair, I saw at first a fuzzy quatrefoil of lights, then tides of water, followed by a squeegee wiping my eyeball clean, and then the insertion and unfolding of a lens that........

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