The Adventures of Blinky

"Honey," there was an urgency in Mae's voice, "we need to bring Jesse to the doctor." Under normal circumstances, I would be worried. But this was Mae, Mistress of Melodrama, to whom, life was extra large.

Anyway, it turns out that Jesse's been blinking excessively. And by excessively, I mean furiously - with forceful clamping eyelid action and stuff. Moth-in-law thinks it's too much TV. Roma thinks its worms. Mae thinks the boy might need specs. Me, I'm thinking of having Paan Mein this weekend. HEh! Okay, okay, so I have no theory, but I do have a story...

(cue flashback harpsichord music)

The year was 1978. Yoke Lin had begun to notice how her son blinks furiously for no apparent reason. It was as though the muscles that controlled his eyelids were on overdrive. Some days he'd blink so hard and fast there would be a flurry of tear spatter and flying eyelashes in the airspace surrounding his face. And he blinked so fast, so much so that his view of the world was like that of revellers at a rave party - strob lights and all.

When a succession of consultations at various eye specialists in town yielded no results, Yoke Lin resorted to the paranormal - praying to the gods and attending seances. However, that didn't work either. Nothing did. It was a mother's nightmare to see her boy suffering and to have no recourse for it.

And then one day, Mahatma Windhi came to town.

Mahatma Windhi was a thin, lanky Southern Indian gentleman, learned in the ways of holistic healing. His skin was as black as night, his hair as white as day and his teeth, as yellow as the first piss of the morning after a night of... erm... not pissing. His face was craggy as the earth yet his demeanour was as calm as the heavens. His years of hardship and apprenticeship in the Tibetan mountains with the second cousin of the Dalai Lama's personal assistance's neighbour from across the street, had brought him to this point in his life. A pivotal moment in both his and the boy's life. The boy and him were destined to cross path, as the stars in the Himalayas had spelt out to him: C-R-O-S-S-P-A-... well, you get the idea.

A gloomy, rainy afternoon as Windhi sat, cross-legged on the concrete floor of his Pre-War Victorian shophouse earnestly scratching his... erm... balsamic noggin, he felt a strong compulsion to look up to the main door. So he did. There at the doorway stood a distressed woman, her dress billowing in the strong winds and her face wet from the rain. Behind her, stood a little boy. Mahatma Windhi squinted to make out the silhouttes, furrowing the brows of his weather-beaten face as he studied the two persons at his doorway. And then he saw it - the boy was clearly wide awake, yet he was having a bad case of the REMs flickering his eyelids at the speed of sound.

Having seated them down, the old man listened to the lamentations of a heartbroken mother. When she had explained her concerns to him, Master Windhi unfolded his loin cloth and brought out a long sharp stainless steel rod, the diameter of those high-class toothpicks and three times as long. He brought it to a candle and watched the flames dance across the shiny metal stick. He then stuck it into a small pewter jar and brought it out again encrusted in a black gunk of herbal concoctions.

"Heduhde eodhoeb hduedendsjuw huehu," he said, speaking in an ancient Sanskrit tongue. Although the boy had no inkling of what was said, he knew that he was being told to open his eyes as though conveyed by some kind of telepathic message. Weill, it was either that or it was because the old master had thrusted his thumb into the boy's startled eye to fold up his eyelids. Then, in a swift stroke the steel rod connected, as Mahatma Windhi deftly applied the herbal gook into the boys eyes.

The helpless child screamed in terror at the violent intrusion into his eyes, writhing and wriggling in his frightened mother's arms. Until he realised that it didn't hurt one bit and that he was being a little shit about it. By then, Windhi had already done both eyes and was now wrapping up some medicinal herbs (which looked suspiciously like bird feed) in a little piece of brown paper. "One day, two times," said the master as he stuffed the folded paper into Yoke Lin's hand.

Yoke Lin thanked the old man, paid him and pulled her son to leave. As they stepped out of the shophouse, the skies cleared before them. Both mother and child stood in awe of the amazing display of freaky weather before them. Perhaps it was going to be okay after all. Perhaps...

(cue out-of-flashback harpsichord music)

Naaaaaaah! That didn't work either.

Until today, nobody's figured out why I was blinking so much as a kid. I eventually outgrew it on my own. I also had perfect eyesight until I turned 30 when an event would lead me to realise that my eyesight was failing. But that's another story for another day. Heh.

Now, I'll have to figure out why my boy is blinking like nobody's business. Perhaps, like me, he'll be fine. But to be safe, I'll still take him to the doc over the weekend. Meantime, any clues will help. Stories, will help too. :)