Tell me what you see in your mind’s eye.

Falstaff? It’s from Shakespeare.

HEALING BY ALEXANDER CARPENTER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 08

My brother lost his sight 10 years ago. Three days after his fortieth birthday he contracted a vicious eye infection that now serves as a constant reminder of human frailty. At least that’s how he eloquently put it in his infamous drunken speech at our sister’s wedding. Crowd-pleasing is his expertise.

He has gravitated towards the center of attention, ever since we were boys. It was this unstoppable gravitas that had brought him to theater in the first place. He played Lear in our high school’s postmodern take, set to a punk rock soundtrack and all. The local paper sent a reviewer and gave my brother kind words—words my parents still keep in a scrapbook in their Boca Raton condo.

He had been in a series of off-Broadway productions when he found out about the infection. Most notably, he had been hailed by enthusiasts of underground Shakespeare productions as the best Falstaff to ever grace New …