Okay, well, first, it's important that during the surgery your eyes stay steady, so what they do is to lead you into a little room with no windows and lie you down on a concrete slab. If it gets cold, they'll give you a blanket. There's a fixture there that bolts your head to the table so it doesn't move, but the really important thing is keeping your eyes still, so they have these little fishing lines attached to the table, which are then affixed to your eyeballs using tiny staples. Many people think the staples are the most uncomfortable part of the procedure, right up until they wheel the "laser" in. I say "laser" because it's less of a laser and more of a needle. They call it a laser because of the laser-like color on account of how hot it is. Now what they're going to do at this point is start scraping your cornea into a normal shape, sort of like a sculptor with chisel, but much more precise and painful. Because anesthetic would dilate your pupils and change the shape of your eye unnaturally, it goes without saying you can't have any. If you like, however, they will stuff your blanket into your mouth to stop you screaming. They will likely do that anyway, because it's really hard for the doctor to concentrate with somebody screaming "oh god stop or kill me" in your ear constantly for an entire four-hour procedure. Well, not really in his ear as such, as he'll be behind the lead shield, but it's still annoying. See, doing a bunch of procedures every year would expose the doctor to too much radiation, naturally, but gamma rays are the easiest way to keep the surface of your eye sterile so you don't get a horrific infection. They'll make you sign a waiver because there is a slight chance you'll come out of the procedure with x-ray vision, and a much, much larger chance you'll come out with aggressive eyeball cancer. Assuming all goes well, though, in a mere six months when they peel the crusty bandages away from your eyes, assuming your eyes don't come away with them, you'll see as never before. With therapy you'll eventually learn to blink again and perhaps one day tolerate the daylight world of men though it is probably advisable to stock up on at least eighteen to 36 months worth of candles before you go in.
