Stye (Hordeolum)

It begins with a slight feeling of pressure on the lid. Then it swells — red, hot, throbbing. A small abscess, an inflammation in a sebaceous gland of your eyelid that feels as though your eye has decided to block your view of the world. Medically, a stye is a bacterial infection. It comes, it ripens, it goes. Usually harmless, often bothersome, sometimes recurring.

But why there? Of all the places where an inflammation could show itself, your body chooses the eye — the organ with which you see the world. The lid — the curtain you can close when you dislike what you glimpse. Your body sends you a signal at precisely the place where seeing and not-seeing meet.

A stye is small. But its message is not.