“I don’t know, just keep looking.”
I stare for a good thirty seconds. But I have no image data bank, nothing in my memory to compare this image to that would help me understand what I am looking at.
“I really don’t know, Mom.”
“Touch it, then. See if you can feel it.”
I put my hand on the block and recognize it instantly.
“It’s a triangle,” I say, deflated.
“Yes,” says Mom. “A triangle.”
“How could I not see that? I know what a triangle is shaped like. I’ve been touching triangles all my life. How can I not recognize one by looking at it?”
I shake my head and sigh.
Mom says, “You just started, Will. You’ll get it. It’s going to take time.” She gives my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “Now, look at the board in front of you. Find the triangle-shaped hole and push the block through it.”
I hold the triangle in my hand and search for a similar shape nearby. I look and look and look, but see nothing. Not the triangle-shaped hole in the board, not even the board itself.
Finally I give up on my eyes and reach for the board, which I discover by touch to be standing upright, like a computer monitor. My fingers brush over the cutout holes, identifying each shape in an instant—a square, a circle, and yes, here’s the triangle. It’s so simple. So easy. How could I not see that triangle-shaped hole?
“I have to relearn everything. Everything. Even shapes. Even shapes that I know,” I say, more to myself than to Mom. I begin to wonder if maybe the surgery was all for nothing. I mean, sure, I can see. But I can’t do anything useful with that vision, and I’m not sure I ever will.
“You’re smart, Will. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
At this moment, Dad walks in from his trip to the store and sits down at the table. “Don’t let me interrupt,” he says, and then falls silent, watching me, I guess.
Before I press the triangle through the hole in the board, I examine it carefully. I close my eyes and try to imagine it. A red triangle. I repeat this process several times until I’m sure I’ve got it. Yes. A red triangle. I know what that looks like. I push the block through the hole in the board, and I hear it plunk down on the table. But a crazy thing happens: Even though I sense the red motion as it falls, and even though I hear it land, the triangle itself disappears. I scan the table for the missing block. There are various red masses of unknown shapes. But no triangle. I close my eyes. Can I still picture that triangle? Yes, I can. I know what it looks like. So where did it go? How did it disappear?
“What happened?” I gasp. “Where did it go?”
“Where did what go?” says Mom.
“The triangle! It’s gone!”
“No, it’s not,” says Mom. “It’s right here.”
I hear her arm slide across the table and see a smudge of red as she nudges one of the blocks.
“See?” she asks.
“No!” I insist. “That’s not the triangle I was just holding! I know that triangle! I memorized it. That is not the same one!”
“Oh,” she says. “Wait. Look at it now.”
I hear her arm move again. There’s a click from one of the blocks, and then—What? How is this possible?—the triangle appears! In the very same spot where just a moment ago sat an indistinguishable red mass, there is now a triangle! Is this how vision works? Is this how shapes work? They disappear and materialize, twist and morph, shift in and out of your field of vision without warning?
“What just happened?” I ask. “How did you do that?”
“Honey,” says Mom, “it’s a triangle-shaped block, not a pyramid. The triangle was just on its side. So from your perspective, it looked like a rectangle. I just turned it so the triangle shape is facing toward you again.”
“Rotated? Rectangle?” I stammer. “How can a triangle look like more than one shape? How can it appear and disappear?”
“It didn’t disappear, Will. It was there the whole time. It just looked different because it was rotated.”
“Objects change shapes if you rotate them?”
“Yes, it depends on the angle you are looking at them from.”
“So how many angles are there?”
“Three hundred sixty. You know that,” Mom says.
“So to recognize a single object, I have to learn it from three hundred and sixty different positions?”
“I don’t know… I never thought of it that way. I don’t think it’s that many. But I suppose you will have to learn the shapes of objects from different angles, yes.”
“What about people?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Do they change shapes from different angles?”
“I guess so. You might see someone from the front. Or profile—like a side view. Or the back.”