By Sadie Pugh
Featured in Caesura 2020: Imago
Glasses
New
My mother continually glances at me in the backseat, waiting for more excited words to tumble from my lips. I had run out of words, too focused on the scenery outside my car window, drinking in every detail. I hadn’t realized the slightly fuzzy color of the faraway tree leaves could be so clear. I could read that billboard from farther away, each word standing out with straight lines and beautiful colors. The cars in the passing parking lots no longer blurred together in a mish-mash of color. I could see the expressions of people walking down the sidewalk, see their faces light up with smiles or darken with frowns. The new weight on the bridge of my nose was
ignored as I focused on the clarity I had been missing. These glasses, so dreaded before this moment, had opened up a world of possibilities.
Question
My classmates all smiled, asking the same question over and over again. The new plastic frames were pointed out a dozen times when I entered each new class. The same question spilled from everyone’s mouths as if they didn’t already know the answer. No one mentioned the shirt that I never wore to school, or the necklace I had around my neck. No one mentioned the darker shade of lipstick, or the new earrings I had on. All anyone noticed was the change in the one thing that they had paid attention too for years. Every expression, every comment was the same. Everyone’s focus was on those dark plastic frames, and the question they all were ready to ask
me.
Pool
My friends call my name, and I have to stop, breathe, listen. I wade through the water
towards the sound of their voices, unsure if I was heading towards the right group of people until I was right next to them. When a hand wraps around my bicep, stopping me, I don’t panic or pull away. I turn, blinking a few times until my friend’s smiling face comes into view. She laughs and mentions how blind I must be to have simply swum past them, towards the wrong people. She didn’t realize how difficult it was for me to distinguish one blurry form from another. She didn’t realize how bad my eyesight had gotten, and she didn’t feel that heavy weight in her stomach when someone suggested we go swimming. I laugh with her, letting her pull me towards our group. None of them seemed to realize how out of focus my world was, save for my friend with contacts in, sending me a small, knowing look.
Bare I frown when I glance at the mirror, my face looking naked despite the makeup that decorated my skin. I had been so excited when, after eight years, I had finally decided to change. My family had been bugging me about it, seeing as I was the only one who still wore the chunky plastic frames on my face. They wanted to know why I didn’t just give them up for something easier. Now those frames were sitting on the top of the dresser, left behind for the slip of plastic that now rested on my eyes. For eight years of my life, I went nowhere without those frames. Now, they would be left behind like a childhood toy, put away for the last time.
Forgotten My roommate’s question hangs in the air, and I pause, unsure of how to answer her. My eyes fall to the glasses sitting on my desk, and it’s then that I realize that I can’t really answer her question, because I had forgotten. I no longer remembered what it felt like to wake up in the morning and not immediately search for the lenses I required to see. I no longer remembered what it was like to be able to climb out of bed and immediately see the world. There wasn’t a trip that I couldn’t remember worrying about whether I had packed my glasses or not. For so long, my world had been blurred around the edges, never fully clear. So, I turned back to my roommate, ready to ask her what it was like to live a life with the ability to see.
Sadie Pugh is a junior English education and writing double major at Indiana Wesleyan University. She enjoys traveling, hanging out with friends and family, and sitting down with a good book.
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