Thumb in the Eye

His thumb hooked past the brow and drove deep, and you felt something give that should never give. The globe is ruptured, its jelly weeping down your cheek, and no medicine of this age can rebuild an opened eye. The doctor lays you back, gives you laudanum till the ceiling swims, and takes the ruin out clean with silk and carbolic so infection cannot climb the nerve to the brain. You will learn distance all over again, one lamp at a time.

• The right eye is gone: no judging distance, no aiming a firearm with any confidence for 3 weeks while the brain relearns
• Bedridden in a darkened room for 3 days, the socket packed and dressed twice daily
• No riding faster than a walk for 2 weeks, the jarring is agony in the fresh socket
• /me tilts the whole head to look at things, one side of the face bound in linen

Recovery The socket heals over 4 to 6 weeks; a glass eye or a patch after that, and the loss is forever.·Doctor, urgently

A splinter off the shattered chair raked across the open eye and cut the clear window of it. The world on that side went white and streaming. The doctor tips your head back in the lamplight, floats the grit out with boiled water, drops belladonna in to still the inner workings, and binds both eyes shut, for one eye moving drags the other along. You sit in your own personal night and wait to learn what sight comes back.

• Both eyes bandaged for 4 days: you are led by the arm, fed by hand, and everything is a voice in the dark
• No reading, no sewing, no fine work of any kind for 2 weeks after the wraps come off
• Bright light is a knife for 2 weeks: brim pulled low or smoked glasses
• /me sits stone still with both eyes wrapped in linen, head cocked toward every sound

Recovery Wraps off in 4 days, the cut seals in 2 to 3 weeks; whether a cloud stays in the sight is the eye's own secret.·Doctor, urgently

His knuckle and thumb together caved in the thin bone beneath the eye, the wall of its little house. The eye itself is whole but sits wrong, and when you look to the side the world doubles and swims. The doctor presses gently at the rim, feels the give, and tells you the bone must knit on its own: cold cloths, no blowing the nose lest the flesh around the eye fill with air, and patience.

• Double vision when looking left for 2 weeks: no shooting, no driving a team, no work at height
• Do not blow your nose for 10 days, doctor's strict orders, or the flesh around the eye balloons
• The cheek and socket rim too tender for a hat brim's touch, sleeping on the other side for a week
• /me looks at folk with a slow, careful turn of the whole head, the left eye ringed in deep bruise

Recovery The bone knits in 3 to 4 weeks; the doubled sight sorts itself as the swelling leaves.·Doctor required

The blow did not break the skin, it broke something inside the eye instead. Blood is filling the space behind the clear window, rising like wine in a glass, and the world through that eye is going red from the bottom up. The doctor sits you bolt upright day and night so the blood settles low, bandages both eyes to keep them still, and forbids you willow bark tea, for it thins the very blood he needs to clot.

• Sat upright day and night for 5 days, sleeping propped on pillows, no lying flat at all
• Both eyes bandaged for 3 days, then the hurt eye alone for 3 more
• No straining, no lifting, no bearing down of any kind for a week, lest the bleed starts fresh
• /me sits propped rigidly upright, eyes bound, fingers drumming for something to do

Recovery The blood settles and clears over 1 to 2 weeks if the eye is kept still and you are kept upright.·Doctor required

His thumbnail dragged across the surface of the eye itself, and now every blink is a match struck against it. The doctor rolls the lid up over a matchstick, finds the scrape, and washes it with boric water. Both eyes get the bandage, for the sound one would drag the hurt one along, and you get three days of sitting in the dark listening to the saloon you can no longer see.

• Both eyes bandaged for 3 days: led by the elbow, no work, no cards, no reading the room
• The eye waters at any light for a week after the wraps come off; hat brim low, lamp turned down
• No dust, no smoke, no leaning over the branding fire for a week
• /me wears a neat linen wrap over both eyes and follows voices around the room

Recovery The scrape on the eye's surface heals in 3 to 5 days under the bandage, a week to feel right.·Doctor required

The thumb missed the eye and took the lid instead, tearing it through so it hung in two flaps like torn tent canvas. The eye beneath is untouched and staring out through the gap, which is somehow worse to look at. The doctor matches the edges by lamplight, sets silk stitches finer than any he uses on hide or scalp, and warns you the lid must close true or the eye will dry and ruin at its leisure.

• Six silk stitches in the right upper lid, no rubbing, no knuckling the eye for 8 days
• The eye salved and shielded with a pad at night for a week so the lid heals shut and true
• No brawling, no branches, no low doorways at speed for 2 weeks
• /me blinks lopsided, one lid stiff with fine black stitching

Recovery Stitches out in 8 days; the lid wears a fine pale seam and closes true within a month.·Doctor required

He shoved your face into the sawdust and bottle glass of the barroom floor and ground it there with his palm. The eye is scratched shallow, but the lid is packed with grit, splinter dust, and one bright bit of glass the doctor spends a long ten minutes lifting out with a needle's point while you hold as still as any man ever held. Then boric water, then the bandage, then the shaking starts.

• The right eye bandaged for 2 days after the picking, then a shade over it in bright light for a week
• No dusty work, no threshing, no riding drag behind the herd for a week
• The doctor wants the eye shown to him again in 2 days, festering is the fear
• /me lifts the edge of the eye bandage carefully to squint at anything important

Recovery Two days bandaged, a week of watering and blinking; clear after that if it does not fester.·Doctor required

His thumb hooked the inner corner of your eye, where the tears drain away, and tore it. Not the eye, the corner: a small wound with a long memory. The doctor stitches the little torn channel as best the age allows and admits, filling his pipe, that the eye may water at every cold wind for a season, maybe longer. You look like a man crying down one cheek, and there is nothing to be done about the jokes.

• Two fine stitches at the inner corner of the left eye, no rubbing it for 10 days
• The eye streams in wind, cold, and woodsmoke: expect it, carry a kerchief
• No sighting down a rifle off that side for a week, the watering blurs the bead
• /me dabs at a constantly weeping left eye with a folded kerchief

Recovery Stitches out in 10 days; the watering eases over a month, mostly.·Doctor required

You dropped your chin at the last inch and the brow bone took what was meant for the eye. The skin split against the ridge like a plum, and blood curtained your sight so fast you thought the eye was gone. It is not. The doctor sponges it clear, puts four stitches in the split, and tells you the brow was built for exactly this and you should thank your skull and buy it a drink.

• Four stitches in the left brow, kept dry for 6 days, no hat sweat soaking into them
• The eye below swells near shut by morning: half your world gone dim for 4 or 5 days
• No brawling and no butting cattle for a week unless you want the seam opened fresh
• /me peers out from under a stitched, swollen brow, tilting the head to see square

Recovery Stitches out in 6 days, the swelling down inside a week, a thin scar in the brow line after.·Doctor advised

The thumb skidded off the socket and the whole fist landed after it. By morning the eye is a hot purple plum, swollen shut so tight you cannot pry it with your fingers. The doctor is unbothered: he sets a leech at the outer corner to draw the blood off, which is a thing you feel and hear more than see, and inside the hour there is a slit of daylight where the eye used to be.

• The right eye swollen to a slit for 3 days: no depth to your seeing, no fine aim
• Cold wet cloths bound on it morning and night for 4 days
• No lying face down for 3 nights, the throb will not allow it
• /me squints out through a puffed purple slit of an eye

Recovery The swelling opens over 3 days; the bruise goes purple, green, and yellow across 2 weeks.·Doctor advised

The knuckle caught the eye a glancing blow and burst the small vessels across the white of it. The seeing is untouched, but the white of your left eye has gone a flat, solid, butcher's red that makes children stare and grown men look away. The doctor glances at it, grunts, says the blood will drink itself back up, and charges you two bits for the reassurance.

• The white of the left eye blood red for 10 to 14 days: expect stares, questions, and one nickname at least
• The eye aches dully in bright light for 3 days, brim kept low
• No rubbing it, however it itches, for a week
• /me fixes folk with one flat, blood red eye

Recovery The red drinks back up over 10 to 14 days, going rust, then yellow, then gone.·Doctor advised

The thumb pressed hard into the shut eye before you wrenched free, and the eye has held a grudge since. The sight on that side is smeared, like looking through a rained on window, and comes and goes with the throbbing. There is nothing to stitch and nothing to bind. Rest it, keep out of the glare, and count the days until the world sharpens again.

• Sight in the right eye smeared and swimming for 3 or 4 days: no shooting, no fine work, no counting cards
• Headaches behind the eye by evening for 3 days, worse in lamp glare
• No riding hard on rough ground for 3 days, jolting sets the throb going
• /me shuts one eye to make the world hold still

Recovery The blur thins over 3 to 4 days and the eye comes back sharp within the week.·No doctor needed

The gouge missed but the nail flicked the surface of the eye in passing, the shallowest of scratches. It is nothing to look at, and everything to live with: sun, lamplight, and the glare off the stove all drive a hot wire through that side of your skull, and you have taken to squinting like a man reading fine print at forty paces.

• Bright light stabs the left eye for 5 days: brim low, seat in the shade, back to the window
• The eye waters through any close work longer than a few minutes for 4 days
• No night watch for 3 nights, lantern glare is the worst of all
• /me sits angled away from the lamp, hat brim dropped over one watering eye

Recovery The scratch mends in 4 to 5 days and the light stops hurting soon after.·Doctor advised

The thumb never found its mark; the heel of his hand found your cheekbone instead. You have a shiner coming up nicely, purple as chapel glass, and a story that grows in the telling. It aches when you grin, which is unfortunate, because everyone keeps making you grin about it.

• A ripening black eye for a week, purple to green to yellow, no hiding it
• Tender cheekbone: no sleeping on that side for 2 nights
• /me grins, winces, and grins anyway under a blooming black eye

Recovery The shiner blooms and fades across 7 to 10 days.·No doctor needed

His nail caught the skin just below the eye and opened a nick the width of a grass blade. It bled like it meant business, the way face cuts do, and scared the man who did it worse than it hurt you. Pinched shut with a plaster strip, it is already half forgotten.

• A small plaster strip below the left eye for 3 days, kept dry
• The cut weeps if you laugh too hard for a day or two
• /me wears a small plaster strip under one eye like a dueling badge

Recovery Healed under the strip in 3 or 4 days, a scratch mark for a week after.·No doctor needed

A fingernail grazed the lashes and the lid, and the eye slammed itself shut and flooded in protest. You fought the rest of the scrap one eyed and weeping down one cheek, which everyone agreed added something to the spectacle. By closing time it opens again, red but willing.

• The left eye red and watering for 2 days, blinking hard in wind and smoke
• A scraped lid tender to the touch for 3 days, no rubbing
• /me blinks a red, watering eye and waves off concern

Recovery Right as rain in 2 or 3 days.·No doctor needed

The gouge got nothing but the corner of the socket and your dignity. The eye is bloodshot at the edge and aches dully when you look hard left, as if it pulled a muscle, which near enough it did. The man who tried it is buying rounds by way of apology, so it could be said you came out ahead.

• A dull ache in the right eye when glancing hard sideways for 3 days
• Bloodshot at the outer corner for 4 or 5 days, nothing a mirror will not show you
• /me rubs the outer corner of one bloodshot eye with a knuckle

Recovery The ache is gone in 3 days, the red in 5.·No doctor needed

You saw it coming and turned, and the thumb meant for your eye skated off the brow bone and past your ear. All it left is a faint scuff above the eyebrow, the kind of mark a man gets shaving in the dark. His thumbnail, on the other hand, bent back to the quick on your skull, and his howling was the sweetest music of the evening.

• A faint scuff over the right brow for a few days, hardly worth the mirror
• Bragging rights: you dodged a gouging by a whisker, and witnesses will back it
• /me touches the scuff above one brow and smiles at the memory

Recovery Gone in 3 days, faster than his thumbnail.·No doctor needed

The nail traced a thin red line from brow to cheekbone, missing the eye by the width of a shut lid. It did not even bleed properly, just beaded up and dried into a fine dueling scratch. The barmaid looked at it, looked at you, and allowed that it made you look dangerous. You have decided to leave it uncovered.

• A thin red scratch past the left eye for 4 or 5 days, worn openly
• At least one free drink on the strength of the story and the scratch
• /me angles the scratched side of the face toward the light, casually

Recovery The line fades in 4 or 5 days, sadly.·No doctor needed

The thumb came for your eye and you did the only sensible thing: dropped your chin and caught it in your teeth. You bit until you heard him confess to sins his own mother never knew, and the whole barroom stood witness. Your eye never took so much as a lash out of place. He will wear your tooth marks a month; you will wear the story forever, and it needs no embellishing, though it will get some.

• Not a mark on you, though the jaw aches faintly from the effort for a day
• The story is legal tender in this town for a week: drinks, favors, and retellings on demand
• Rinse the mouth with whiskey, doctor's honest advice, another man's thumb being what it is
• /me taps a front tooth and nods toward the man with the bandaged thumb

Recovery Nothing to recover from, save the trouble of staying humble.·No doctor needed