We Have Nothing In Common

A small TV studio. The audience applauds as taping begins.

Host: Hello, and welcome to We Have Nothing In Common. Our first guest is Gerald, a 32-year-old man from Saskatchewan who’s never had something in his eye. Hello.

Gerald: Hello.

Host: Tell me, Gerald, how is it you’re in your thirties, and yet you’ve never had something in your eye?

Gerald: I have no idea. It’s not like I live my life any differently. But for some weird reason, I’ve never had an irritating particle of foreign matter get stuck in my eye. It’s just never happened.

Host: But surely you’ve been buffeted by grit in strong winds?

Gerald: Oh yes. It happened all the time on the farm.

Host: And surely, you’ve been splashed in the face with dirty water?

Gerald: Of course. But in both cases, nothing actually ended up in my eye.

Host: Hm. What about shampoo? Have you had shampoo in your eye? Or suntan lotion?

Gerald: Not that I’m aware of, no.

Host: What about onions? Does chopping onions make you cry?

Gerald: [confused] Uh, no. Why would it?

Host: Fair enough. So how do you feel about this lifelong lack of ocular irritation?

Gerald: [cheerfully] Well, in some ways I’m quite happy to do without something I’m told can be quite uncomfortable. [Waits a beat as studio audience titters. His face falls.] But on another level, it makes me feel isolated on the fringes of society.

Host: Explain.

Gerald: Well, you’d be surprised how often our popular culture references the experience of having something in one’s eye.

Host: Really. How so?

Gerald: Well, for example, all my life I’ve seen that clichéd scene where a character—usually a proud man who doesn’t want others to see him crying—starts to cry. And when someone asks him, “are you crying?” he replies, “No, there’s just something in my eye.” Well, I simply can’t relate to that.

Host: Interesting. Yet you understand the concept of having something in your eye.

Gerald: Yes. On a purely intellectual level I completely understand that having a small particle lodged between one’s eyeball and eyelid would be painful, and that the eye would involuntarily produce tears to flush away this particle, and that this process can easily be misconstrued as crying—just like crying can easily be misconstrued as involuntarily producing tears to flush a particle or particles from one’s eyes. And I fully understand that, to save face in certain social situations, a person might wish to pass one off as the other.

Host: But this isn’t enough for you.

Gerald: No, because I have no visceral connection to it. Intellect aside, I truly can’t imagine crying for any other reason than the emotional… people have tried to describe it to me, but I suspect it’s much like explaining vision to a person who was born blind.

Host: You feel excluded.

Gerald: Yes. And it’s not just a problem with contemporary culture. Take that scene in Othello, when Desdemona says “Mine eyes do itch; doth that bode weeping?” and Emilia replies, “’Tis neither here nor there.” I really don’t get that.

Host: Really.

Gerald: Yes. I even have difficulty with the Bible. “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

Host: Matthew 7.

Gerald: Yes.

Host: You don’t understand the passage.

Gerald: No. I don’t have a brother either, so I’m really out of the loop on that one.

Host: Tell me, how does this gulf of understanding affect your day-to-day life?

Gerald: It’s a terrible burden. You see, I’m an observational stand-up comic. I depend on my essential commonality with my audience as the basis for my act. My livelihood.

Unbeknownst to Gerald, three stagehands are sneaking up on him from behind.

Gerald: And when my audience and I don’t share something as basic as having had something in our eyes, it makes me doubt my observational instincts in general. Oh, I would give anything to underst—

The stagehands suddenly wrestle Gerald to the floor and sit on him. One forces open Gerald’s left eye and another, with a pair of tweezers, carefully drops a single grain of sand in his eye. They release him, leaving him writhing on the floor.

Gerald: [clutches face] Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Host: [offers Gerald a cup of water] Here, here, take this.

Gerald awkwardly pours the water down his face, blinking rapidly. After a moment, he calms.

Host: Are you alright?

Gerald: I’m okay. I just had something in my eye for a moment there.

He gasps. A look of utter amazement fills his face.

Gerald: I—had something in my eye. Oh my God! I had something in my eye!

Host: Yes, Gerald, you did. A single grain of sand. Tell me—how did it feel?

Gerald: [excitedly] Awful! It was—it was so tiny, but it felt so big—and it kind of burned. In—in my wildest dreams I never imagined it would feel like that. I’m—I’m finally starting to understand.

Host: Indeed you are! And if you wish, we can take you backstage and force as many grains of sand into your eye as you like!

Gerald: [overcome] Thank you, thank you so much for helping me. I never thought—I never— [his voice breaks, tears begin to run down his face].

Host: Are you okay? Do you have something in your eye again?

Gerald: No. Only tears. Tears... of joy. Thank you….

The audience cheers as a weeping Gerald tightly embraces the Host. The Host pats his back comfortingly and speaks to the camera over Gerald’s shoulder.

Host: And there you have it, another outcast successfully reintegrated into society. After the break, we’ll say hello to Barbara, a 25-year-old med student who’s never had a minor cut requiring a Band-Aid, and Philip, a 44-year-old footballer who’s never been kicked in the testicles. Stay tuned!