The Cave-Fish

He would have preferred to have been born blind.

There were humans with two eyes, and insects with six eyes, and once he had heard the tale of a man's journey to the north of Hokkan into caves filled with cave-fish with no eyes.

He had lain that night with one hand covering his face, feeling uneasy when he could not see the moon. But his was only one eye, and the moon needed no companion. He felt his senses sharpen until the cage around him was the world, and the wind's howl was the voices of a thousand birds.