I C U.

So last week around midnight I'm taking a break from my digital labors, loping in the dark towards the kitchen for a well-deserved snacky-cake, when I notice a curious glint off the rim of my glasses. I glance around for the source of the light but there's nothing to be seen.

I plod awkwardly on towards the kitchen, still half-noticing a flicker of light on the periphery of my vision every now and again, particularly on my right side. I finally take my glasses off and give them a good look, just in case tiny aliens had infiltrated the temples and were trying to get my attention with a miniature Aldiss lamp. That's when I realized the flash of light was coming from my right eye.

Uh-oh.

It didn't do it all the time, I had to flick my eyes back and forth to see it but it was like a big halo around the perimeter of my sight, very briefly, even with my eyes closed. I mused that Superman probably sees stuff like this all the time with those freaky eyes of his but even the possibility of his super-discomfort didn't balm my distress.

The next day I called my eye doctor but, after a brief consult, I was steered towards a retinologist. I didn't like the sound of that. Anything with "ologist" on the end almost never comes cheap.

It was a couple of days until I could see him but I was in no discomfort so I wasn't too worried. That is until The Blob appeared.

As if to keep the Flash Creature company a blob of what seemed like boogery mucus would dart in and out of my field of vision. It didn't obscure my eyesight or anything, it just sort of popped in and out playing a disturbing game of Peek-a-Boo.

Uh-oh again.

As you might guess the night before the appointment I'm sleepless. This can't be good, I tell myself repeatedly. I'm going blind, it's all over, and I'll have to acquire some sort of outrageously expensive guide animal that's good with Photoshop. With my luck it'll be some kind of animal that defends itself with bags of super-heated slime. Or a real estate agent.

Fuck.

The day of the appointment finally arrives and the nurse preps me for the doctor by torturing my eyes with lights and salves and drops and discomfiting puffs of air. I accept it all with my usual poise, muttering soft curses of vengeance that will someday be mine.

I was then led to a small room and made to sit in a chair with a large and disturbing contraption attached to it. A tag reading "Made In America" hung off it in exactly the same way it might have hung from Minnie Pearl's hat. Frankly, I didn't even know we still made anything in America.

The doctor finally arrived and put the dreaded contraption to work. It probed and strobed and inspected every corner of my eye. Through some trick of the light I was occasionally able to see the dainty veins that laced the surface of my retina. It was ghastly.

Eventually the inspection was done and the doctor sat back and, with an evil grin, told me that I was fine, just getting old.

Well, hell, I could've told him that.

To be specific, I was told that there's a mucus layer on the back of the eye. No doubt, I thought, the residual vessel of youth and vigor. Unfortunately, said the doc, my mucus was giving up the ghost and sloughing off, giving the macula a noogie or two for old times sake on its way out. This was the cause of both the flashes of light and The Blob.

"All very natural. It'll run its course and you'll be fine in a couple of weeks," the doctor told me.

I have to say that I was very relieved to hear this. I'm looking forward to being able to see with just enough clarity in my old age to be able to hunt my victims down with something besides just their scent.

I shake his hand and say thanks and head for the door. That's when he tells me it'll eventually happen to the left eye, too.

Fuck.

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BTW, this is NOT the concept I had in mind when I sat down to create today's comic. It's frustrating to spend six hours on a complex idea only to have it fall apart in the third act at the last hour. This cartoon is one of many reserves I keep stored under the mattress next to my collection of emergency fapping rations. With any luck I'll someday find the proper inspiration to complete this unfinished sym-funny.

Get it? Symphony? Sym-funny?

Hah! I kill me.

=Lefty=