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Dear Diary VI
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1. January
Part I
Louise chomped, then swallowed another piece of sweet popcorn, whilst she looked up at the cinema screen: “Galaxy Wars” wasn't really her favourite genre of film, but then Michelle had asked to see it in her own special way. She had a way with words, Louise thought dreamily, as the opening creep appeared for “the Return of the Clone Menace”; something about rebels, bases and suchlike. She turned to the darkened, indistinct shape on her left, and whispered in its ear,
'doesn't it look like an eye chart?'
The dark shape nodded, light reflecting haphazardly off the shimmering, dome-like lenses of its glasses. The dark shape produced something that, for its own requirements, was a far easier means of communication in a cinema: a mobile phone in silent mode. A few quick button presses later and the shape showed her a message,
'better or worse?'
Louise smiled, and again whispering into the shape's ear said,
'much better with you.'
She had no reason to complain about her vision, either: only a few weeks ago she'd had new lenses put in her frames, right eye minus 14, left eye minus 11.5. At last the difference was diminishing, leaving her with a more normal looking appearance, except that she wore what anyone would call thick glasses. Michelle had no complaints: she happily held Louise's hand, then later squirmed around a little in the cinema seat, pressing herself as best she could against Louise's body, gently touching her in places only a lover could, but avoiding stealing her glasses, as she had done before: Louise did want to be able to watch the film now that she had made the effort to get there. Michelle contented herself with glances through the edge of her girlfriend's thick lenses, and later on, watching the reflection of lasers on the perfectly flat fronts of Louise's lenses.
Meanwhile, Kirsty accessed the diary file on her laptop computer, and began to type
'Dear Diary, today is the 8th of January. I haven't been good at telling you what's been happening in my life recently because I've been so busy at work and elsewhere. As you might recall, my name is Kirsty, I’m 25 years old , of moderate height and weight, told that I’m attractive despite my glasses - which if I remember correctly, are about minus 16 each and quite thick, and unlikely to get any thinner. I work in Insurance, which although not really exciting, is a decent job and my current position as Section Leader gives me some underlings to boss around, and also some responsibility which is fairly well rewarded. Recently I have been very tired, and I have been asking myself “when did I last get my eyes tested?” and honestly I cannot remember when. Surely it was last year? I thought getting older meant I only need eyetests every two years? I really can't think when it was I got my current scrip. I seem to be getting a headache more and more often these days, it’s not much fun.'
She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes a little with her palms, as if trying to conjure up clearer vision through some obscure magical ritual. Of course, that wouldn't work. She opened her eyes and gazed incoherently at the screen before her. Even a foot away it was a blur, stretched and distorted by her astigmatism just to make absolutely sure that it couldn't be read without correction. She blinked, and looked around her, and the world seemed to shift and swim around her; a near-impenetrable miasma of light and colour. For a moment, the question floated in her mind “how did my eyes get this bad?” Then she put her glasses back on and the world jarred back into focus. Or did it? It occurred to her that the once perfect-seeming vision she had enjoyed, thanks to her glasses, perhaps wasn't quite right. A little blurred, maybe? “Kind of”, she mused, as she turned back to the laptop.
She ignored the growing feeling of not-rightness, and typed
'Yes, I definitely need to get to the optician and soon. I can't see a thing without glasses, I'm sure that's no surprise to you. My lenses are a sort of plastic, can’t remember what it’s called, they make my eyes small but I can't help that. The frames are metal, shaped like elongated rectangles with slight curves up and down at the top and bottom respectively, with a sort of small black plastic section that fills in that useless bit where the ear pieces join up with the rest. I think they were in fashion when I bought them. I've got too busy to worry about fashion so much these days.'
With that she yawned, turned off the laptop and lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling as she'd done so many times before, albeit with various amounts of detail as her eyesight changed. Before long she was fast asleep, still wearing most of her smart office clothing.
Kirsty opened her eyes, and the first thing she noticed was that she was seeing clearly, and wasn’t wearing glasses. She was in a darkened room, then abruptly found herself in a deserted street. She looked up at the brick wall nearest her and saw a notice. On it, in big black letters it said “Forbidden”, and below that, a stylized pair of glasses. Walking around the wall she found a house: as she drew closer the wooden front door seemed to transmute to a kind of mesh or netting: she heard screaming, then saw a nondescript woman banging at the mesh, crying for help. Someone appeared to pull her back, and she heard a harsh male voice say,
'don't complain about your vision. You know the rules.'
She heard a sound like a wave rolling up a stony beach, and then she recognized it as massed footsteps: she turned to see a column of black-clad soldiers marching in formation, crushing and grinding as they went countless pairs of glasses into the ground. That sound was drowned by another: crying. She saw a darkened figure crouching huddled down an alley, sobbing...
And thus she stirred, for a moment confused that the crying continued, then realised it was her daughter next door. She straightened her askew glasses and got up, cursing herself for not having got dressed for bed, then called wearily, as she went next door,
'okay dearie, mummy's coming.'
She went into the nursery next door and turned on the main light. Annie stood up in her cot, gripping the bars with her all her strength, save for that portion devoted to crying. Despite the fact she couldn't see much, she knew it was her mummy. Upon that realisation, she quietened somewhat, and let herself be picked up and fussed over. Her mother cooed and told her the night light was naughty for going wrong and thus plunging her into the darkness she much disliked. Kirsty told her, with a note of exasperation in her voice,
'come on, lets find the spare one, shall we?'
Annie giggled.
After a few minutes rummaging, to her relief she found the spare one, plugged it in, and thus got Annie off to sleep again. With a quiet but heartfelt sigh, she returned to her room, got undressed for bed, before removing her glasses and turning off the light. However, despite her tiredness, sleep eluded her; so after about half an hour she turned the light back on, returned her glasses to her face and got up, then sat before her laptop again to write some more in her Diary file.
'Hello, Kirsty aka chief slave again. Just been woken by Annie - I think - and cannot sleep. I suppose by now, being as you are a particularly attentive diary, you will know that I have quite a large family, all with some odd problems, all of which seem to fall on my shoulders. Where do I start?'
'Firstly, I have a little baby girl called Annie who is just so cute and lively, but needs to wear glasses. That might not sound so strange, especially in my particular corner of humanity, but she is just coming up to 2 years old now. I remember being able to see clearly without glasses up until I was about 6 or so, I think, it’s so long ago it’s a struggle to remember the details. It seems so unfair for her to be lumbered with such strong ones at her age. I do hope she's not going to be bullied at school, that is such a horrible thing. To be honest the optician isn't quite sure what her vision is right now: we won't know until she can really tell us what she can see. I'm kind of dreading that, because I think she might not get 20/20 vision. When will be the first time she will say “mummy I can't see it?” Oh, to have all these dreams and hopes for your child and then you find out she can't see!’
She paused and stared at the screen for at least a minute. Then she continued 'no, I won't get angry about that again.'
'There is some good news to tell about Emma. Previously my well-endowed middle sister seemed to specialise in being awkward, and causing mum and then me so much trouble and strife. I still don't really know why she did what she did, and I really wish she hadn't got me involved with it. She's sort of changing. She's kind of restrained now, just about sensible and just about normal. She's got a job at the hospital where Melissa used to work. She’s getting interested in charity work at a local church, although I don’t think she’s actually found God, she seems to be sniffing around after him. I don't really get what she's saying about what she believes in, but if it makes my life a little easier, then I'm not complaining. What's really good is that once a week she does this group, or class, you might call it, to help girls accept their glasses. Now that might sound a little odd, but I know how hard it can be to be called speccy-face or four-eyes, to be dependent on these ugly horrible things on your face to let you see clearly. Everyone else is happily being pretty and normal and getting a nice boyfriend, and you're stuck with whatever's left over, feeling that you've got the short straw and that's just your hard luck, or worse, you did something wrong somehow. She's had some great successes, turning shy and resentful girls into young women who can happily wear glasses and not worry about it. It's all a question of attitude, Emma says: after all, she knows all about attitude.’
'Talking about attitude, my youngest sister seems to have got some of her own. She's too decent to do what Emma did, but last month I had a heck of a job with her in the optician. She had to have a particular set of frames and no other would do. I even tried asking her if she'd like to try contacts, but she chewed my head off. And that girl with the pebble lenses and funny stutter she hangs out with... I'd like to tell her to get rid of her quick sharp, because she's scaring the boys off, but I doubt she’d listen to me. Oh, that's a bit nasty I know, but one pair of glasses is enough to cause trouble, two, well, who knows?'
'Melissa, one of my twin sisters, is doing much better now. She's still learning to lipread as best she can, and teaching us fingerspelling, which she swears is easier to see as long as we're not doing it naked: she's got really lousy vision which seems to have stabilised at around 20/200 for now, as I recall. She spends a lot of time at the college training centre, doing extra sessions learning more lipreading. The best news about her is that she is in line to get a Cochlear Implant, so she can hopefully regain some hearing. Oh, that would help her so much.'
'Amy for some bizarre reason seems to be living a nice peaceful life the other side of town. Sometimes she comes to help with Annie when the babysitters let me down. I'm going to get something properly sorted out for that, maybe get a live-in child minder for Annie, because everyone else is too busy these days.'
'Apart from all that, my life is generally straightforward. A day off would be nice, though.'
She shut the laptop, a wry smile on her face, and went back to bed.
Part II
A few days later, a dark, chilly Tuesday evening saw Emma driving to the college where her sister Melissa was learning to lipread. Her eyes went heavenwards as she apologised for shouting at a pitifully poor specimen of driving by someone else. Then she looked at herself in the driving mirror. Her round, appealing face was dominated by her glasses. Unlike Kirsty’s wavering view of them, they were just exactly what she wanted: they were tools. It never bothered her much that she couldn't see well without them. What was the point of worrying about them? They helped her see, that was that.
She nudged them onto her nose, ignoring the obvious lenticular lines in each lens, which were part of the package. It was the person that mattered to her, not the details. She got out, holding a slim attache case, and walked to the door, with the same sort of calm determination she'd long possessed. Her clothes were darker and more businesslike than those she previously wore, but no clothes could really hide her ample curves. She was an attractive young woman, and myodisk lenses would never change that.
Once inside, she gave a cheery greeting to the cleaner, went to her assigned classroom, opened up her case and sat waiting for her class to arrive. There was a new girl tonight; but Emma never worried about anything these days, and this was no exception. Her name was Tracy, and Emma had details of her age, prescription, etc: -2.5 each eye, a little astigmatism. A fighter, but not like Emma: she was fighting the wrong fight. The myopia wouldn't go away, so why fight to see when glasses would help with that?
She watched her little flock trickle in: first there was Emily, tall and skinny, fairly pretty. She was getting somewhere with Emily, because she now wore glasses here all the time, even though she admitted she took them off outside or whenever she thought she could get away with them. Then Nadine came in, a rather shy young girl, wearing plus glasses she still obviously hated. There were about ten or a dozen of them when Tracy came in, not wearing glasses, her eyes red from crying. Emma got up, took her aside and spoke kindly to her, telling her she was among friends; that everything would be okay and she could just sit listening for now without having to wear glasses if she didn’t want to.
She then guided her back to the group, and introduced her, saying,
'this is Tracy, a new friend.'
A girl called Jenny brought her a chair, giving a her kindly smile, so Tracy sat down next to her, staring at Emma with nervous expectancy. Emma smiled, and said,
'well, thank you all for coming tonight. Does anyone wish to begin?'
Her gaze swept from one to another, barely resting on each, before Caroline got to her feet, her chair scraping on the floor as she did so. She drew breath, and said boldly,
'my name is Caroline... I'm 15 years old and I need my glasses to see. It's kind of comforting to me to be able to see clearly, all the little things in the distance I didn't realise were there before, or maybe I forgot about. After a while,' then, after she slid off her glasses, 'going without glasses becomes kind of strange, uncomfortable, almost weird. I mean, look around you: everything is nice and clear. Now, look at things without glasses.'
She stopped to allow the girls to take off their glasses. Emma saw lots of squinting as brains that had got a little too used to seeing with glasses struggled just as they had until fairly recently. Caroline put hers back on, and waited for them to do the same. She asked firmly,
'isn't that better?'
there were some mumbles of assent, nods and the like, then a sprinkling of applause as Caroline sat down.
A couple of similar speeches followed, one, a girl called Samantha, told of her surprise when a boy asked her out, another, telling of the attention she now received, simply because she wore glasses,
'people want to keep trying them on. It's a little strange because when I didn’t have them, nobody much noticed me.'
Emma asked,
'do you mind being noticed?'
The girl went a little red in the face, shrugged and replied a little shyly,
'it's not so bad really.'
After that, Tracy got to her feet, still not wearing her glasses, and said,
'you're all very strange people, I always thought glasses were ugly things',
she looked at Emma, and said
'I can't see too well, but yours look really ugly, you know.'
Emma blinked in surprise: nobody had said that to her for a long time.
Another girl spoke up without standing up: which wasn't really meant to happen, but Emma let her speak.
'Tracy - that is your name? Tracy, it's all a matter of perception.'
There was a little laughter at that. Jenny touched Tracy's arm, and told her,
'you might not believe me, but there's something about glasses. Some people find them attractive to look at.'
Emma nodded, knowing far more about this than she was prepared to admit, even here. The girl continued,
'they like the shinyness, the way they attract attention to the eyes, you can use that. They like the way your eyes are smaller, the cut in.'
Tracy sat down and allowed the girl to talk more about the way glasses looked, not just as ugly things on the face, but as ornaments or decoration. Tracy looked sceptical, but at least she was still listening. Emma smiled, approving of what was being said. There was quite a bit of applause and agreement with what she said, at least from the more convinced members of her group. As they talked more, Emma pretended not to notice Tracy opening her glasses case, then tentatively putting her glasses on.
Towards the end of January, Kirsty sat down in her office chair at work and looked around her office. It seemed different, but these days she hardly had time to worry about mundane stuff like her own life. She picked up the latest company news document, and there it was, just as she'd been told: her idea for glasses insurance had been taken up. She sat on a swivel chair, gently rotating back and forth, smirking to herself; then the phone rang, and she was lost in someone else's problems again. That strange feeling of itching and discomfort in the back of her eyes seemed to get lost in a sea of more immediate worries.
By the time she was back home, after a day at work including a particularly tedious but necessary meeting and dealing with those issues that could not wait till tommorow, she was exhausted, a headache seething between her eyes and thumping elsewhere inside her skull, as she tried to concentrate on the late news. She thought she heard something about a victim of something horrible, but was dozing by the time the news was over. The next thing she knew was being shaken awake by Emma. Her headache had eased to a whisper, but threatened to shout once more. Emma called out to her,
'Big sis, are you okay? You look like you had a bad dream. Anyway, the babysitter's gone home.'
Groggily, Kirsty got to her feet and forced herself to stay awake a little longer, whilst she showered and prepared herself for bed.
2. February
Part I
The first Saturday afternoon in February found Louise awaiting her girlfriend in town, sitting on a bench, watching people go by. The occasional man caught her eye, wearing glasses of course; other facets of their appearance being of little account to her; but as always the thought hung in her mind “why can't he be a girl?” Then a particular girl appeared a short distance away, her hair dark blonde, falling in seductive cascades around her face, her body deliciously curvacious, wearing thick plus glasses. It was Michelle, her luscious girlfriend. She smiled and waved: briefly it occurred to Louise, as she stood to greet her, that she didn’t think she could love anyone else. Michelle stuttered out
“L....L...L...”
By now, Louise had long experience in the art of deciphering her girlfriend's appalling stutter. They embraced and kissed a little on the cheeks, as if perhaps they felt it wasn't time to go public with their relationship. Michelle's big, heavily madeup eyes fluttered magnetically at Louise. Instead of attempting more speech, she reached into her bag and took out a few small black rounded things, which she then proceeded to show Louise. At first, Louise was puzzled, but then remembered Michelle mentioning, in her own special way of course, that she was going to try lens blanking: just for the fun of it, she had said by phone message.
They retired to an area where fewer people where bustling about, whereupon they sat down again on a convenient bench, then Michelle handed Louise a lens blank. Curious, Louise held it to her glasses, and found that it neatly covered her entire left lens. Michelle grinned, and clapped a little, so Louise said to her,
'you sure these are going to fit?'
Michelle nodded, then reached out, briefly touching the front of Louise's right lens, and then her own with a gentle fingertip.
'Both of us? Oh, now I see... Now I know why you wanted me to get the same frames as you!'
For it was true: Michelle had nagged Louise about getting identical metal frames for her glasses, in part out of love, and partly because it would make this little escapade easier.
Michelle then produced a small screwdriver from her bag. She held it to the edge of her glasses and made a sort of twiddling motion with it, as if she was about to unscrew her glasses and let them fall to pieces right from her face into her lap. She then pulled her glasses from her face, and felt Louise take both them and the screwdriver from her. Michelle heard her say firmly,
'okay, honey, you asked for it, now I'm gonna replace your right lens.'
Michelle alternated between staring into the distance, where she found her vision blurred only to the extent of her astigmatism and that part of overfocussing that had been driven out by fulltime glasses wear, or else occasionally glancing at Louise, for her an uncomfortable smear sitting close to her. If Louise was doing something else, she would have not the faintest clue, but by now she completely trusted her. She looked at her girlfriend's mouth, and it occurred to her that it was a good thing she wasn't deaf like Louise's sister Melissa, since she perceived her mouth as a misshapen blur: Louise had told her all about her sister, and that misfortune didn't really appeal at all. She heard Louise hiss an irritated curse.
'W...Wha?'
Stammered Michelle, as always, relying on Louise to fill in the words she couldn't enunciate. Louise told her,
'It's OK, the screwdriver slipped, I didn't scratch your lens, only the frame a little. You'd never notice, let alone anyone else.'
She saw Louise check it again, just in case, but could not read her expression.
Then she heard her voice, reassuringly soft,
'here we go honeybun, look at me...'
She opened her glasses out and carefully pushed them onto Michelle's face, pushing aside her shoulder-length, bushy blonde hair. Louise watched her for a moment, a curious expression on her face. She asked
'W....w...'
Louise had to abruptly snap from considering Michelle's one-eyed countenance, the way one side was corrected by a heavily curved lens, the other covered by a very gently curved shiny black piece of plastic, to deciphering Michelle's severe stutter. This wasn't so easy all the time, despite her long experience and endless patience.
'It looks weird?'
Michelle shook her head and tried again, but couldn't get Louise to understand. She got out her mobile phone and typed in a brief message
'u look confused. It's weird, though.'
'Weird for me too. I feel shortchanged. I'm used to two big beautiful eyes, but at least I still have the bigger one. You sure about this?'
Michelle nodded vigorously. As she handed the removed lens to Michelle for safekeeping, an oldish guy wandered by, glanced at them and muttered audibly,
'damn weirdo lesbians.'
Michelle glanced up at him, and told him in her usual garbled fashion to fuck off. Louise chuckled at that as they got up and walked out into full view of the milling crowds.
The following day, a Sunday, saw Emma standing in the church hall, listening attentively to the pastor talking about his recent visit to an orphanage devoted to disabled children in a particularly poor part of Africa. Of course, the demand outstripped the ability to aid everyone there: it lacked basic equipment and living aids that such a home in the richer West would be expected to have. He told his flock to consider how these children coped with poorly-maintained second hand equipment, how those who had visual problems had little access to glasses, etc. Emma's ears pricked up at that. His next words sunk in deep,
'those of us who are used to such aids, perhaps they should consider giving them up for a while, perhaps for one tenth of the time, so that they can discover what these poor children have to endure. If in doing so, you save some money, you should donate it to their assistance fund.'
Emma drove home thinking about that all the way. She sat at the wheel after parking her car, staring at herself in the driving mirror. Thoughts raced through her brain, “what's my prescription these days? Minus 18 or something? What's 10% of that? Does it include astigmatism? I'm going to have to get my eyes checked... Can I do without some correction?” She stared down the road into the distance, wondering what that would be like. She slipped her glasses down her nose and peeked over them. Although she had this view of the world every morning before donning her glasses, doing this outdoors seemed different: the unfamiliar would be extremely hard to deal with. She wasn't so keen on that eventuality. She thought “surely it's not going to be as bad as that,” then pushed them firmly back onto her face and got out, knowing she had some thinking to do. Emma being Emma, she never had any problems wearing glasses, as long as they weren’t hand-me-downs: in fact she quickly adapted to them, so for many years had no experience of being shortsighted for long. The blur she experienced when she needed a change irritated her, but never got out of hand, because she naturally refused to allow it.
At the same moment as Emma was sitting in her car, Kirsty was upstairs playing around on her laptop, idly surfing the net. On an impulse, she typed into webscan “Thick Glasses”, and was instantly astonished at the result: there were thousands of references, so many that there was no way she could go through them all. Most of them were advertisements for glasses - she glanced over them and saw a reference for another site “Eyescene” - then clicked on news results for glasses. Idly she thought that perhaps someone had thought of a way to avoid glasses altogether. No, that did not come up. What did come up chilled her as she read it:
'Spechunter claims 3rd victim,'
then,
'police have located another body: it has been identified as that of Holly Bishop, who was reported missing last week. They refuse to rule out a connection to the two recent murders of young women here in the north of England. So far the only connection that can be made is that they all wore glasses, and that the glasses have been taken from the dead bodies.'
She just had time to open the Eyescene link and read the first page “the discussion site with a different outlook on eyewear”, when the door opened and Emma called out to whoever might be around,
'hello, everyone, I'm home!,'
and that was the end of that.
A few days later Louise was sitting on her bed: it was late at night, or more accurately, early in the morning: this was simply because she didn't want to be disturbed. Gingerly, she held up the black lens blank Michelle had left with her to her left eye. It was two or three years ago she'd had to go around like this for real, with no choice in the matter about whether she would have the patch or not. She shivered a little as the only weakly forgotten memories came flooding back: all the teasing, all the fuzzy vision. With a strange feeling of deja vu, she took off her glasses and found that, as usual, everything beyond a few inches seemed to vanish, only to reappear in a sort of distorted uncertain fog, an alien view of the world that glasses chased away. For just a moment she wondered how her vision had got this bad, then she set to removing the left lens from her glasses, struggling to hold it close enough so that she could see the tiny screw head, and yet far enough away so she could fit the screwdriver in between the glasses and her face. The trick was to loosen the screw enough so that the lens would come out, not so much that the screw fell out: she knew she'd probably lose it if it fell out. It all seemed so easy and so much fun out there in town last week, but then it occurred to her that she had done this to someone else's glasses, and could see what she was doing perfectly. It was comforting to consider how easy things were with glasses, not so much to be deprived of them.
She pushed the lens out and put it on the bedside cabinet where she could see it, if not in much detail, and replaced it with the black plastic lens blank. A few minutes later the deed was done and Louise sat staring around her with just one eye, not two as usual. She picked up her diary, and wrote
'Hello Diary, tonight I am trying out lens blanking in the comfort of my own bedroom. I am pretending to be blind in one eye. Michelle gets a tremendous thrill out of it. It just seems like old times to me, and I didn't find it thrilling then, more like depressing. It's like you can see but not see. Everything on the left - I have to turn my head to see, I remember all that from before. The only good thing, compared to last time, is that I can see clearly.'
She paused to look at herself in the mirror, then started writing again
'It is just like before, except that there's a big black shiny thing where my lens should be, instead of a opaque white patch. There's no other difference. Hey, I wonder...'
She heard movement, and froze, hoping she was imagining it.
'Go away... Go away...!’
She murmured urgently to herself. There was a knock at the door, and a call,
'hey, Louise, get to sleep. I can't hear you, but I can tell your light’s on.'
Louise sighed with relief, turned the light out, waiting not entirely patiently for the deaf and near-blind Melissa to come and go outside. Finally it went quiet outside, so Louise put the light back on, half expecting another knock at the door. There was none. She quickly scribbled in her diary
'this does have a funny sort of risk of being found out. It kind of makes me a little naughty, like I'm skating on thin ice, doing something I shouldn't do. Okay, good night from me.'
As quickly as she could, she replaced the lens in her frame and left her glasses in their usual spot where they could be found quickly with her hands, and went to bed.
Part II
One night about a week later, Kirsty awoke with a start and looked around her. The shabby hut she lived in for, well it had to be said, she didn't know how long, was despite the darkness, easily visible to her. She heard sobbing, and the door opened: a figure was brought in by a couple of black-suited guardsmen, who dumped her near Kirsty, and then silently left, locking the door behind them. The figure sat in a pathetic bundle of ragged, dirty clothes, small and helpless. Kirsty could see it had black hair, but could discern little else despite her strange visual powers. Kirsty coughed a little, in order to gain attention, and said,
'hello, my name is Kirsty.'
The figure looked up at her and squinted. She unsteadily got to her feet, and said
'I can't see you very well, but I need a friend. Can you be my friend? My name is Diana, by the way.'
Diana was small and skinny, malnourished and unsteady, but would have been quite pretty if things were better for her. Kirsty kindly offered her a place near her that was somewhat more comfortable, thanks to some old sacks left lying there, where she fell asleep.
It seemed moments later when daylight streamed through the window. Kirsty awoke to find her new friend still asleep. The door was unlocked, and black-suited guardsmen peremptorily ordered them out. There was a small gaggle of similarly-attired wretches outside, and they were both pushed towards a larger group of such. One of them came up to her, squinting and struggling to see, touching her a little, even smelling her, before announcing softly,
'never seen you before. Not that I can see much, without my glasses.'
Instantly they were at work in a field, tending some plants Kirsty had never seen before, but thought might be edible. After a while, Diana came up to her and whispered surreptitiously
'I know you can see. I can tell you are doing this too well, too neatly. You need to leave some bits of weeds behind, or else they will know.'
Kirsty was taken aback, and said
'I don't understand at all.'
'We are glassophiles, you are not: you are normal and pretty, you can see, you should not be here.'
'I think you are right, I don't belong here. I come from another place, where glasses are accepted, where some people actually like them. I wear glasses. Nobody really worries about them, well, not these days.'
Diana looked incredulous at that. Kirsty brushed her hair from her own eyes with her hand, and her glasses just appeared. Now curious, she waved her hand over Diana's face, and glasses appeared in front of her eyes too. Diana gasped in astonishment, then shook with fear, taking them off quickly. They vanished, and then so did Kirsty's, but she could still see. She whispered to her new friend
'I don't understand what's going on here. But I do know this: we have to get out of here. I will help you. And... All these poor wretches.'
With that, Kirsty felt herself being shaken awake. A blurred shape was talking to her. She knew the voice: Emma. She said,
'wake up, Big Sis. Your new housekeeper is here. You've overslept again.'
Later that day, Melissa arrived at the lipreading class: the journey there was silent and fuzzy as normal, but for her rather interesting: she’d been picked up by her teacher, Alan, a man in his 30’s. At first she’d really struggled with her lipreading: she’d been unable to get anywhere, and took out her miserable, ill-tempered frustrations on him. But now that she was learning and getting somewhere - adapting to her need to interpret the shifting blur of someone’s mouth - she realised how patient, helpful and kind he was. She had the worst vision of anyone in the small class. She also wondered what her cochlear implant would be like: she was really looking forward to that, her hopes high for a return to something like normality.
Once inside, there were the usual one-on-one practice sessions with other people. But whenever Alan was around, she would ask him some question along the lines of
‘Alan, I can’t see you very well, your mouth is in shadow, can you come a little closer and say that again?’
He willingly came closer: for her, recognizing, seeing detail and the rest soon became difficult beyond a very few feet. But when something really important needed saying - he would oblige. After the class was over, she walked up to him, and then said,
‘can you say that again, please? I was too far away, and not looking in the right direction.’
His expression changed, but for her that detail was unknown. Her myodisk lenses constrained her field of view enough that she had to turn her head, and that made her direction of view quite easy to guess for someone who knew her and her visual problems, and her limited visual acuity implied she could not be looking at something very far away: there was little point her sparing much more than a brief look at any detail beyond 10 feet. So she couldn’t really have been looking over his shoulder. Patiently, he came a little closer and repeated it for her, despite the thought vaguely occurring that Melissa ought to be capable of making out most of what he was saying anyway at that distance, thanks to her training. He asked her,
‘are you ready to go home?’
To which she replied,
‘yes please.’
Once back outside it was all blank darkness to her, particularly beyond the grey area where lamps aided those who could see properly to their cars. She unfurled her white stick, and set off boldly in the wrong direction. She felt a touch on her elbow, but didn’t flinch: she expected it. She turned, and allowed him to guide her over to his car. Guiding an effectively deaf-blind person was more difficult than the process for person just blind: communicating information about obstacles was a problem, so they were best avoided where possible, thus making the journey longer and more convoluted. She huddled up close to him, dependent on and grateful for his assistance. There were regular stops for turns and opportunities for very brief explanations of where they were headed next, by means of tracing letters on her palm. Then she felt her hand being guided to something hard and cold: the roof of his car. She felt him brushing past her - as he did so, she turned in preparation to get inside the car, brushing a little harder as she did so. Then the courtesy light came on in the car - it was her whole world at this point; a misty ethereal yellowish blur, although she could see some vague impressions of larger detail inside.
Once sitting inside, she felt and saw the other door open and him sit beside her. She turned to him and thanked him for his guidance
‘I’m sorry, I forgot where your car was. Sorry for causing trouble.’
‘That’s OK.’
The interior light switched off, and thus she was again plunged into the useless darkness, then the front lights came on, thus giving her some reference point, although for her they revealed nothing of the darkened world worth seeing. The journey home was again silent, her vision seeing the lights of oncoming cars but nothing else. She sat there thinking about her upcoming operation, looking forward to being able to hear and communicate again in the dark. But then, she had other ways to say really important things.
Some days later Kirsty sat in her chair, tapping quite furiously at her laptop's keyboard, telling her Diary
'I have a lot to tell you, as usual. We have a new housekeeper-cum-babysitter called Victoria, or Vicky as she likes to be called. She's from Spain and speaks with a funny accent sometimes, but she works hard and Annie likes her. I suppose we'll all be eating Paella before long. About Annie, she's running around causing trouble, and saying things, glad I don't have to watch her all the time, otherwise I'd be exhausted. She just looks so cute! I've got a feeling things will be alright for her.'
'There's something else I've recently discovered. There's this website called “Eyescene” which I've found, it's a great resource for all things related to glasses. I think I told you I keep getting these headaches and I've sort of dipped my toes into one of the conversations, and they all advised me to go to the optician and get it checked out. Obvious you might think, but I never have time these days for much beyond sleeping, eating and insurance sales. These people on Eyescene all seem quite friendly, I can see myself talking to them again.'
The last day of the month found Emma pacing around her small office at the hospital, then sitting at her slightly tired desk. It dimly occurred to her the whole office was tired, but at least it was clean. That came of being in charge of the cleaning here, and also through her formidable nature. Her face seemed to harden a little as she had come to a decision. She opened her handbag, and took out a small cardboard box. Then she rummaged a little more, and took out a small screwdriver she'd bought recently for this purpose. She opened the box and saw two gleaming glasses lenses, both cleaner and certainly newer than anything else in her office. She couldn't tell any much difference between these lenses and those in her frames, which sat there quietly and innocently ready to give her 20/20 vision. They seemed to be just as thick - within a fraction of a millimetre, and had the same size bowl. Something godly had told her to reduce the strength in her lenses, and that was what she would now do. As quickly as she could, she removed the old lenses and replaced them in her frames with the new, then pushed her glasses rather casually onto her face. She shivered a little, as the reduced lens power made her vision noticeably poorer - not close up, but in the distance. Charts and clutter pinned to wall charts now became disturbingly unreadable. Hurriedly she stowed away the old lenses and her screwdriver.
The rest of the day passed interestingly for Emma: at first she was scared someone would twig her horribly feeble vision, but then, it was only reduced by 1.75 dioptres and she could still see quite well. Inspecting cleaning was a challenge she'd not quite anticipated, but again, she got away with it. Every so often she became slightly irritated that she couldn't see things, but then thought on the matter, looked at something closer and mostly comforted herself. Once home from work, Louise was out, Melissa couldn't tell, and when Kirsty came home, she appeared not to notice either. Emma sat in her room contemplating the blur. She told herself it wasn't great, but it would be okay. She wrote in her diary
'If Kirsty didn't notice this, then nobody will. Except me and the god of glasses, that’s if there is one.'
3. March
Part I
A few days into March found Kirsty sat at her desk at work, tapping away at her laptop.
'You would not believe the world I have entered into during the last few weeks since I discovered Eyescene, it seems like a dream land, filled with strange people and strange ideas. Yes, I know, I've met some strange people before and been fooled by them at times, but this time they seem genuine. There is one in particular called “Hadrosaur” - he says that he uses that as a joke, to imply he is old and decrepit. He's older than me I know, but he sounds quite fun. He asks all sorts of questions and talks a lot about how girls in glasses look so alluring - haven't heard that for a while, but it's not unwelcome. He's in Insurance too, and I think I will try to arrange a meeting with him at an upcoming industry show I’ve heard about in a few weeks. I can't wait.'
The following Saturday saw Michelle leaving the house accompanied by a figure that at first glance could have been anyone. She was female, and reasonably young, but her face was cowled and hidden by the hood of a grey hoody-top. Once down the street a little way, Louise's voice quietly announced from beneath the hood
'I still feel silly doing this.'
Michelle stuttered out something that was incomprehensible to all but Louise, who answered,
'alright, I said I'd try it. But only like this, okay?'
Louise felt in her pocket and found her lens, thus to some extent reassuring herself that unlike before, her binocular state could be easily reinstated.
They walked along the road to the bus stop, barely talking: Louise nervous, Michelle lacking in small talk as always. The bus came, Michelle went aboard, followed by Louise, who only showed her face and her travel card to the driver, not the rest of the world: he stared at her just a little too long for comfort. Louise followed her girlfriend, and they sat at the back: thankfully for Louise’s feelings, there were few aboard. The picture on Louise's travelcard had been subtly altered: a piece of sellotape carefully stuck over her face, and the left lens then equally carefully blacked out with a black pen, so as to match her own blanked out lens.
Louise sat hoping she would not be noticed, answering Michelle's stuttered questions skillfully, looking up as little as possible so as not to expose her currently assumed condition. Her mind wavered between wishing she hadn't agreed to this and then hoping it might get better, even perhaps be fun. After a while the bus travelled further into town, filling up gradually, and Louise realised she was looking around just as she had with two eyes, and also just as she had two years ago in her patched state, remembering the way things were back then. Her hood had somehow worked its way down through movement, exposing her face more generally. Michelle smiled, enjoying the view and the feelings it engendered in her. A little boy of perhaps 3 years old got on with his mother, a nondescript slightly overweight woman. She met Louise's gaze, and looked away. Louise looked at the sign that indicated that the Railway Station was near. “Two stops to go,” she thought.
After a some time watching things go by, vaguely she realised she was being stared at. She heard a child's voice chattering, and then more clearly,
'Mummy, is she a pirate?'
Louise sat trying desperately to ignore both that innocent question and the greasy squirm she felt in her stomach. The mother glanced at her again, then gave her son a quiet lecture, telling him not to ask things like that. He stared a little longer, thoroughly confused. He got a whack, then as the bus lurched to a halt, the unpleasantness of being dragged up from the seat and down towards the door. Michelle squeezed Louise's hand encouragingly.
Once at the train station, Louise and Michelle went to get tickets at a machine, which of course didn't need to understand Michelle's stutter nor could stare at Louise. She caught a snatch of conversation from two people nearby,
'she's such a pretty girl, shame about her eye though.'
Louise tugged her hood forward, doing her best to ignore it until the train came, which they got on. This time it was somewhat harder to be inconspicous: people were looking up at her from seats as she walked down the aisle in the middle between the seats, and thus could see her cowled face. The two girls sat together and chatted a little: Michelle asked with her voice, supported by some texting on her mobile phone what it felt like. Louise quietly told her,
' I feel very uncomfortable, I feel like everyone is staring at me.'
Michelle looked around. There was only one oldish man in a suit who could possibly see them; his attention was fully engaged by his large newspaper. She shrugged, then typed on her phone,
'this is exciting! Love it!'
Louise looked a little pained. Michelle tapped away on her phone and showed Louise the result.
'Sorry, Forgot u not like it much.'
'Why did I choose such a weird girlfriend?'
Michelle pointed at herself, and looked slightly puzzled and displeased
'N... N... Nor...',
she stammered out, and Louise told her firmly,
'darling, you're not normal, even for a lesbo.'
Michelle laughed. The man with the newspaper glanced at them, ruffling his newspaper in irritation: that set the pair of them into barely-suppressed fits of giggles.
The train stopped a couple of times: at one of them, a man standing on the platform stared at Louise, so she stared back obstinately. Then, at the third stop, a woman pushed a young girl aboard, somewhat older than the kid they'd met on the bus. The train lurched into motion unexpectedly, and the woman quickly pushed her child into the seat facing Louise, and sat down beside her. Despite her apparent one-eyedness, Louise soon realised that she was being coyly inspected. The girl looked a little timid, even scared. She shivered a little, and her mother noted it, then glanced over at the two girls opposite her. To her, they just seemed at first glance like two normal teenage girls, curvy and attractive, the girl near the window slightly prettier - but the glasses didn't help. But the pretty one, she'd lost her left eye in some accident, and was forced to have a black plastic thing instead of a lens in order to cover it up. The woman felt sorry for her, but only momentarily, because her daughter was whispering in her ear. She glared at her daughter, and replied,
'no, she's not. Shush now.'
The girl began to shiver a little, and cringingly allowed herself the briefest of glances at Louise. She told her mother softly,
'yes, she is. Mum, I'm scared of her.'
'Don't be silly. She's only a girl.'
'But she's got that thing on her face.'
The mother looked apologetically at Louise, and said to her
'I'm sorry, she gets a bit silly sometimes.'
Louise was by now earnestly hoping the girl would get over it, or that they would get up and leave, or at least do something else, but no, they stayed aboard; then the girl began to cry, saying,
'she's a monster - she's going to eat us!'
Louise felt and looked confused, and then a little queasy: she didn't remember feeling like this when Michelle did it. Michelle leant comfortingly against her, but despite this Louise didn't feel so happy. Finally, thankfully, the train slowed for their stop. Louise ignored her apparently-disfigured face, the howls coming for the distraught child, and everything else. Louise pushed Michelle to get out of the train as fast as possible, by means of quickly going to the doors. She felt like pulling the doors open before the train had even stopped.
At last the train stopped, so she pushed the button to open the doors and scampered out, followed by her now panicking girlfriend. Michelle called out ineffectually for her, then found Louise leaning against a wall, hyperventilating. Wordlessly she dragged Louise to a bench, then once sitting managed to calm her down somewhat. Louise was crying a little, and needed some considerable hugging from Michelle as reassurance. Eventually Louise collected herself, and read what Michelle had typed on her phone,
'you had enough?'
Michelle looked abashed, even guilty. Louise relented, and told her,
'okay, we'll do some more. But no more little kids, please.'
Michelle nodded happily. She took back her phone and typed out,
'u look sooo sexy!'
Louise grimaced a little at that, but Michelle's face told a different tale. Louise had to ask,
'you're getting an orgasm because a kid thinks I'm a one eyed monster?'
That was a question that would have stumped Michelle even if she hadn't her severe stutter, so all she could do was look helpless; her big eyes watching Louise hopefully, fearfully, wondering what might come next. Louise shrugged, and said,
'come on, Honeybun, let's go then.'
Michelle smiled, and accompanied her out of the station.
Some time later Louise sat on a bench with Michelle in another town centre, alternating between looking around and talking with her girlfriend, feeling somewhat more relaxed, but rather glad she was in a different town centre: there was a chance she would be recognized, but not nearly as likely. At least here she felt more comfortable pulling down her hood a bit more, silently telling herself that this was how she coped before, so she could cope now. She noticed a boy sitting on a nearby bench - only a few feet away - he was probably about 12 or 13, spotty and not very tall. He casually ate chips bought from the local market, and was studying the two girls sitting nearby, munching thoughtfully. Louise almost ignored him, but then he finished his chips, dumped the greasy paper in the bin and went over to them. He stuttered a little, nowhere near as badly as Michelle on a good day, but then said,
'do you mind if I sit with you, and ask a question?'
Louise straightened up, and looked at him with her one uncovered eye, wavering between telling him to get lost, and being friendly enough to talk: the latter won over. She nodded her assent, thus he sat next to her.
'So, how did you lose your eye?'
Louise looked at Michelle, who shrugged and gave a little smile, and Louise gulped a little: she'd hoped not to be asked this, and metaphorically kicked herself for her stupidity. The boy noticed her discomposure and hurriedly asked forgiveness. Louise wasn't really listening to his apology too carefully: she was trying to think of an answer. Quickly she came to a decision and said, a sombre look on her face,
'oh, I got caught up in a car crash, part of the car bent and bashed my eye in.'
She shivered, thankful this was merely a lie, and hoped that it would be enough. He asked,
'Does it hurt?’
‘No, not now.’
Louise felt her girlfriend give a strange quiver, as if someone had tickled her. The lad watched Louise for a moment, and was about to ask another question, when his friend called out and thus he was obliged to rejoin him, but after he stood up, he coyly told her she was pretty with one eye. Louise blinked, then heard Michelle give a soft moan. At that, Louise gave a groan of exasperation: she knew exactly what that meant, and rolled her eyes skyward. Then she turned to her and told Michelle firmly,
'that does it, no more fooling around with blanked out lenses for me. The next one asking questions will be asking to look at the scar: I'm going to put my lens back in, coz I'm sick of being told I'm some freaky ugly monster thing. I know all that gives you the butterflies, but for me, it's making me feel queasy. I wanna be normal again.'
Michelle started to whimper and sob a little, but Louise got up, pulled her hood over her head, and stalked off to the nearest toilet whilst feeling for her lens and screwdriver in her pocket. Some minutes later, when she reappeared, she had two eyes again, and nobody stared at her or gave her pitying glances, which felt good to her, but there was no sign of Michelle. Louise felt a pang of regret, then anger. She hadn't wanted to do this: but had agreed out of love. When Michelle had done it, it was fun, if a bit weird. Feeling numb, she went home on the train alone, and once there, sat in on her bed crying a little.
Part II
The next day was bright and breezy, thankfully dry and not too cold, so Kirsty, Emma and Annie set off for a walk in the park - and perhaps a little play on the swings. Kirsty helped her on to a child’s swing, started pushing her gently, so causing Annie to giggle happily, and then turned to her younger sister, asking,
'can I ask you a question?'
'Yeah, sure...'
'I've been having these headaches a lot recently, and I can't remember when I last changed my glasses. I don't suppose you remember?'
'Me? No, not a clue, sorry Big Sis.'
There was a short pause, then Kirsty asked,
'can you read that sign on the gate from here?'
Emma looked momentarily uneasy, glanced at the sign, and then answered,
'no, should I be able to?'
Kirsty's mouth tightened, then she gave a quiet, uncertain “mmm”. After a short pause, Annie giggled again, and then Kirsty asked,
'can I borrow your glasses?'
'Why? Wanna start a fire? It's cold enough to need one!'
Emma found herself being fixed by that irrefusable small-eyed glare she'd seen before many times, then said,
'okay - no need for that...'
She took them off, handed them to her eldest sister, commenting dryly,
'please don't ask me to read the sign now.'
Emma didn't really see the fine details, but could see Kirsty take off her own glasses and try her pair. The first thing she said was,
'you've still got such a big head!'
'Thanks. Can you read the sign?'
'No. And they still give me a headache, or make it worse. I hope it's not the myodisks, because I'll be wearing them soon.'
'Aww, they're not so bad. It's probably because your astigmatism is at a crazy weird angle!'
'No, it's yours that's at the crazy angle.'
Emma gave a sigh of exasperation, demanded her glasses back, on the not unreasonable pretext that one of them had to see in case Annie ran away. Kirsty readily agreed to that, and handed them back. Gently Emma suggested,
'perhaps you're just over tired, low on sugar, something like that. It can give you a headache too. Try eating a chocolate bar, see if it helps.'
'Yeah, I'll get fat.'
'Oh, that's not so bad really.'
'How would you know?'
Emma glanced down at her ample bust, then smiled a little. Kirsty glared at her again, then said mock-sternly, hands on hips,
'keep them under control, please.'
Quite soon they were both remembering past misdeeds, and giggling more than Annie ever did, who sat in the gently moving swing, looking confusedly at her Mummy and Auntie Emma, her tied-on thick plastic-lensed glasses not telling her exactly what was going on nor why.
Kirsty sat down in front of her laptop that evening and found the appropriate file, and began to type
'Dear Diary, today I compared my vision with Emma's in the park. I know she hates having poorly corrected vision so I can assume that if she can see something, I ought to be able to see it too, so if I can't then therefore I should get my eyes tested and my glasses changed. I couldn't really do much of a test: it's a bit rude to ask really, but she couldn't see any better than me, so I can assume my vision is okay. That is a small relief, but it doesn't explain the stupid headaches.'
She stopped and shut her eyes for nearly a minute, but found that didn't really help, so opened them and continued typing
'Perhaps I shall try eating some chocolate. Or else compare my vision to Louise. Ahh, but, she may not have exactly perfect vision like I assume Emma would have. Hang on, I know who I can ask. My friend Hadrosaur, when I see him, I can check with him: he told me he has 20-20 vision and doesn’t need glasses, although he says he admires girls with glasses. I'll be seeing him for real in a few weeks, I can't wait. Perhaps I can put up with this headache stuff a bit longer.'
Emma landed on her bed a short while later and pulled the diary from her bookshelf. Many pages had been missed: she was not a diary person, not usually anyway. Nevertheless she opened it at the correct date and began to write
'Oi, Diary, it's me Emma. It's been a very long time. I just have to say that I'm worried about my big sister Kirsty. She's getting these headaches, which I know usually means a visit to the opticians and new glasses ASAP. Unfortunately, if I had told her the truth today, I'd have to let go of my little secret. I know I am doing the right thing but it means I have to deceive my big sister. I hope either she will work it out herself, or else perhaps she will adapt to lousy vision. I have, after a fashion. You get used to the fogging in the distance. It's nowhere near as bad as I thought. I can do this, I can deal with it. See you soon, bye.'
Later that night, Louise wrote in her diary, feeling rather emotionally torn and confused, her eyes reddened from crying
'It's me again, Louise. Forgive me for my wobbly writing today, but I've been having trouble. My girlfriend and I - I don't quite know what to say or how to say it, but I think we might be having a breakup. Where do I start? She got me to do this doing this lens blanking thing with her, first of all at home and then outside, in public. You know, I didn't enjoy my previous experiences of this, and back then I wished I could be free of the stupid thing sooo many times. And now, I have this crazy girl who gets a kick out of it! I'm not sure I can take it. It wasn't so bad with her doing it, although I had to deal with all the funny looks and stupid comments, but then I tried it myself, and, oh, the things people said to me. I haven't seen Michelle since I left her there on that bench. She sent me a text this morning asking if I was okay, but I don't know if I am and I don't know if I want to see her. Why can't I have a normal girlfriend? A normal life? Yeah hah hah I'm a lesbo, so I can't have a normal life. Okay, normal girlfriend then will have to do. Maybe I can change her, make her more normal. Ha, ha, ha. Perhaps I can teach her to talk properly instead of stuttering...'
She stopped as the obvious answer came to her, and began to cry a little.
Just over a week later, Kirsty looked down at her peacefully sleeping sister Melissa. She’d just been delivered into the recovery bay after her operation to install the implanted receiver and electrodes for her cochlear implant: there was a big protective pad over her right ear where this had all been done. She’d been told to look out for infection and dizziness afterwards, and would need to help her vulnerable sister recover - as if she had nothing else to worry about or do, but then this was her sister. Her vision swam, her headache seething threateningly, so she shut her eyes. She heard footsteps, but ignored them for the moment. Then she opened her eyes and looked down the corridor: For a moment she thought that she was looking at another Melissa, but then realised it wasn’t. It couldn’t be, so therefore it was her sister Amy, identical except for her better vision and ability to hear, as well as minor differences only someone who knew her would be aware of. She called out,
‘is that you, Kirsty?’
Amy was rather better at recognizing people in the distance than Melissa, and thus could use public transport without so much difficulty. Kirsty gave a tiny sigh: at least in her current state, she could see better than Amy, although that was hardly difficult. She put such problems aside, and replied,
‘yes, it’s me.’
Amy’s vision was restricted, distorted and much minified, but even she could tell an empty chair from one in use, so sat down next to her sister and looked straight at her. Kirsty was well used to her strange gaze, it being fixed and much corrected, tiny eyes blinking from within small circles: it could be quite unnerving to those who hadn’t seen such before. Amy asked her older sister hopefully,
‘how’s it going?’
‘oh, the doctor said it all went smoothly and there’s no complications at present. She should be coming home today.’
‘Ahh... That’s good news.’
She reached out and grasped Melissa’s hand, and told her gently,
‘get well soon, Smelly Melly.’
Kirsty chuckled at that, then replied on Melissa’s behalf,
‘Amy samey.’
Amy smiled, and commented,
‘you don’t say it right: It’s Amy Samey, not Amy samey.’
‘I’m not a twin.’
‘Yeah, even I can see that.’
They spent some time chatting about old times, swapping anecdotes then asking about their respective children. Joey had perfectly good vision, but Annie’s situation was much less clear. Amy asked,
‘what do you think is going to happen? When will they know?’
‘I don’t know. Not this year for sure, she’s too young to test her visual acuity properly. Oh, I really hope she will see okay.’
‘If not, she can join our little blind club.’
Kirsty gave a twisted smile.
‘Between us all, we have some experience of crappy eyesight, no?’
‘You could say that...’
Amy turned fully to her, gently put her hand on Kirsty’s, then said to her, meeting her gaze with her own encircled version,
‘you know, we all depend on you for so much, we’re very grateful. Even Emma. Especially Emma, I think. I don’t know what we’d do without you, probably all fall apart. You’re the very best big sister.’
Kirsty smiled, and replied,
‘all part of the service, Amy Samey.’
Amy laughed, then replied,
‘that’s more like it. We’ll make a twin out you yet.’
At that Melissa stirred, so their attention turned toward her.
A couple of weeks later Emma was finishing up at church hall and getting ready to go home when one of the men there came over to her. She thought he was quite sexy, wearing glasses that were nowhere near as strong as hers, but alas he was married. That had never stopped her before, but now, she was trying her best to be good. He asked
'Emma, we've got a proposition for you. Come with me, and we'll talk about it.'
Emma smiled: in her opinion, propositions were usually pretty good as far as she was concerned. He took her into a small room and for a moment she thought he might be up to no good, but then she heard voices, snatches of conversation,
'it's been okay so far...'
'I really empathise with those poor kids in Africa...'
And suchlike.
Once inside, she soon realised everyone there wore glasses, and had reduced their prescriptions by 10% as the Pastor had suggested. He wasn't here, bu