In this interview excerpt, Speaker B explains heterochromia—a condition of having two differently colored eyes, specifically a brown eye and a green eye. While initially proud of this unique trait, they recount how repeated public attention turns the condition into a burden: strangers stare, pause, and bombard them with intrusive questions about genetics, perception, and imagined powers. This constant objectification reduces them to a "sideshow" rather than a person. Recognizing this, Speaker B decides to reclaim the narrative by using storytelling to reshape how they are perceived, turning a source of unwanted curiosity into a tool for personal empowerment and identity construction.
Chapters
So I'm going to ask you to actually start about, and I read your book and I love the first chapter where you talk about this special condition you have, uh, which is called heterochromia. I'm not going to explain what is that because I want you to explain what this condition is and how that helped you to get into this whole realm of storytelling.
Now, heterochromia is a fancy word for two different colored eyes. So I have a brown eye and a green eye, and it's my favorite thing about myself. Like, I have a built-in answer to the question, tell us something interesting about yourself. I, as much as I loved it though, I realized at a really young age many people don't know what to make of it. When someone notices in conversation, I can see their eyes going back and forth between mine, and it's, it's almost like their brain is trying to decide, like, do I look at the brown eye or the green eye or the brown eye or the green eye? And as soon as that starts, I brace myself because I know what's coming. It is the same every time. Their words slow down and come to a stop and they pause and they point at me and they go, "Did you know you have two different colored eyes?" As if I didn't know my own eye color. And I never quite know what to say to that. And so like, thank you. No, I didn't know I had two different color eyes. Like, my response doesn't matter in these moments because they then would get into Um, what color eyes do your parents have? Or do you see different colors out of each eye? Or, um, do your eyes give you special powers? Which I've always wanted to ask people, like, do your eyes give you special powers? But I would just, you know, you, you brace yourself for this, this constant set of questions that would always end with, how did that happen? And this thing that I loved became this burden because they would call other people over and I was no longer a person, I was this sideshow where everyone is looking at me and trying to see my eyes and asking me questions and not really listening. And I decided that I was going to tell a different story.
