One Heart-Stopping Second: How I Nearly Gouged Out My Own Right Eye

Late-night livestream rooms, for a restless wanderer like me who is either on the road or planning the next expedition, act as windows into unfamiliar realities.

One evening, I was casually channel-surfing across chat rooms, seeking idle background banter from distant souls to lull myself to sleep.

By sheer coincidence, I stumbled into the stream of a bald taxi driver named Brother Tsao.

Cruising through dark city avenues, he leisurely spun stories about his passengers, recounting encounters with colorful personalities — including a female client who was so grateful that she paid for his entire overseas vacation upon returning home, flights and five-star lodging included. Stunned by this intriguing glimpse into another realm of human connection, I stared closer at the screen.

Right at that hypnotic moment, disaster struck.

Holding my phone with one hand and casually brushing back my hair with the other, completely mesmerized by the broadcast, my right thumb suddenly jabbed straight into my right eye. Yes, the naked eyeball itself took a solid, direct punch. Muffled curses slipped under my breath as I rubbed the lid, feeling an abrasive sting like sandpaper across the surface. Checking the bathroom mirror, there was neither swelling nor severe redness, suggesting no immediate rupture.

An hour later, the sensation remained mildly prickly, without significant deterioration. I reasoned that a good night’s sleep would mend it.

Fortunately, I maintain a strict habit of keeping fingernails clipped short; otherwise, that clumsy jab would have surely sent me straight to the emergency room.

In retrospect, a chill crept down my spine. The eyes are our soul’s panoramic lenses on the universe; without them, how could one bear witness to the authentic, raw landscapes lining the open road?

The mishap dredged up a bizarre memory from my student days.

Once, one of my eyes inexplicably began weeping tears of blood, staining red like those eerie cinema scenes where marble statues of Christ weep crimson tears.

Back then, unbothered by teenage mortality, I simply slept it off without consulting a physician, waking up completely healed. Looking back today, had that bleeding spectacle unfolded across St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican or within a haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands, onlookers might have hailed it as a miraculous prodigy, canonizing me on the spot as an unexpected saint.