Why We Can’t See in the Dark

Once our eyes were wide as owl-eyes, sharp as any prowling fowl-eyes, seeing clean through pitch and shadow, no torch needed, no more, no more. Elders say we walked unblinded, moved through midnight well-reminded of each root and stone and river, sure of foot on any shore, never groping, never guessing, walking dark like it was floor, back before, back before. There was a hunter, Osun's son, who envied what the owl had won, envied how she saw the field mouse twenty paces from her door while he, for all his human seeing, still went hungry some evenings, still lost deer to blacker thickets no torch-flame could explore. So he climbed the tallest hemlock, climbed to where the owl-nest bore two gold eyes, and nothing more. "Give your sight," he told the owl, "give me what makes darkness foul to your enemies and easy hunting-ground for you to soar." The owl said nothing, only blinked, her old eyes level, unconvinced, and told him sight was never given, sight was traded,sight had cost, and the cost was something no man living had ever paid before, paid before, paid before. He didn't ask what cost she meant. He took her eyes. The old owl bent, gave a cry that split the hemlock, gave a cry that shook the shore, and something climbed into his skull, something vast and something dull, a seeing wide as any midnight, deep as any ocean floor. He climbed down blazing, climbed down burning, saw the dark as bright as morning, saw it all, and wanted more. He hunted every night that followed, every hollow, every shadow, took what the dark had always sheltered, took it faster than before, took the fox out of her denning, took the fawn before its weaning, took until the forest emptied, took till nothing crept or wore fur or feather through the thicket, took the dark down to its core, its core, its bare core. The owl watched this from wherever owls go blind and go forever, watched the man burn through the midnight like a torch nobody bore,and she called then to the others, called to sisters and to brothers, called the moon down close and told her what her stolen eyes now saw, and the moon, who'd lent her silver only sparing, only wary, pulled her light back through the door. That's the night the seeing left us, that's the night the dark bereft us, took back what the owl had given, took it clean forevermore. Now we stumble, now we falter, now we need the torch, the altar- fire, the lamp, the small weak candle, need them just to find a door, and the elders say it's payment, say it's owed and paid forever for the hunger that one man bore, one man bore, and nothing more.