Dear Forum,
in the last weeks I had some time to work on a little story again. i hope you enjoy my narration.
Best regards Brillenstein
Since we don’t know each other, my real name doesn’t mean anything to you either. To decide if you want to read my story or not, I give you the following facts about me: I am 26 years old, my artist name is Luxille and my eyes have the following prescription: R 16,00 L 15,75.
It is one of the first warm days of the year. The sun chases away the grey of winter. In the one or other front garden a little green shows up. None of this can change my bad mood. I stand at the bus stop and wait. I have the feeling, I would wait my whole, crappy life only. On the bus, on the teachers, on the end of the lesson, on grades that don’t interest me, on the fact that my life will pass or that at least something exciting will happen until my death. I am 16 years old and go to the St. H. Gymnasium. You can call me a professional queue. Shit. Life sucks. And as if that wasn’t enough, I’m always waiting for my best friend. If she doesn’t come around the corner, we’ll miss the bus again. Waiting for the next one. Coming too late for Mrs. M’s. Get an entry in the class register. Wait until there are five. Director. Letter to the parents. It’s all so boring. Where is the stupid cow? Finally: Annabelle comes running from the right - the bus rolls up from the left. Again well gone. I am still angry, but then I discover the glasses and my life gets a turn. It is a very simple pair of glasses. It seems so simple, so pure and at the same time so exciting. Annabelle is beautiful with the glasses. A black frame that corresponds with her black hair and dark, fine eyebrows. You might want to know that Belle has long black hair and a big white face. I’ve always had the feeling that her head has grown too fast compared to the rest of her body. Above all her face - but these glasses change everything: Suddenly everything makes sense. As if her nose had always been waiting to wear a glasses frame. As if her eyes had always longed for the two glasses. Everything is right now. The pitch-black hair, the almost white teint, the shining varnish of the eyeglass frame, the delicate lenses- “What are you staring at?” Annabelle hisses. I am irritated and stumble out of my thoughts. “Never seen anybody with glasses before?” “Of course… that… well, I meant to say-” “Forget it!” I lower my head in shame. I feel how I turn red. I have offended Anna. But I wanted to congratulate her. Tell her how beautiful she is. How well a pair of glasses suits her. So good that I am almost jealous. What does almost mean? I am jealous!
In the following weeks our friendship is put to a hard test. We have known each other since kindergarten and have always shared everything. And that felt so right and natural that we both never had the idea that it could be a great happiness. A fragile happiness. Annabelle is now somehow different. She avoids my gaze. It’s hard for us to find a topic in the breaks. That has never happened before. I am shocked. I am afraid of losing my girlfriend. At the same time, I can no longer keep my eyes off her. She is not the first person to wear glasses in our class. There are still the two fat Pauls, Esther and of course Claas, the class nerd - but these are all people whose glasses have never fascinated me before. With Belle it’s different: she’s so beautiful with her glasses. She suddenly looks so elegant. So feminine, delicate and at the same time so mature. I wish I could wear her goggles only once. The thought still makes me very sick. I constantly catch myself staring at my girlfriend. I wake up in the morning and first see her spectacled face in front of me. I can’t think anything else. I dream night after night… Imagine what it’s like to roam through the city and around me the colours melt into a colourful panopticon. All contours seem very soft… tender… beautiful… I feel the pure happiness racing through my veins… I see Annabelle and then again me… we laugh… only the two of us are distinct and clearly recognizable because we are so close to each other… all other people, the whole city, the world is hidden somewhere behind it in a curious, colorful fog… I blink to perhaps recognize a few details… again I have to laugh. Nothing about this dream is threatening, everything feels familiar and right! When I have intensive dreams of Annabelle, her glasses and me in the next weeks again and again, I suspect that a new passion has been ignited in my life.
Today Annabelle gets her new glasses. I know, she told me herself. Sometime in the course of the last year we had a conversation: Phew, that was… how shall I say… intense. We both cried because we felt that our friendship was almost breaking up. It was incredibly emotional - so much broke out… and it was incredibly good to realize that we had both felt this great, great threat. We didn’t want to lose our relationship. Even more tears, relief, hugs and vows that something like this would never, ever happen again. Phew. And the glasses? As far as I am concerned, my wishes regarding the glasses have not changed, but for some reason, I have not mentioned the subject in our big debate more than absolutely necessary. Why? I do not know for myself. It just seemed to me… too much. Annabelle is excited. Since she went to the ophthalmologist a few days ago and was given a new prescription, it’s been going on. No fear this time. No retreat. Uncertainly check out the reactions of her environment. I am so happy for my girlfriend and I am bursting with curiosity to see her with her new glasses. I still feel the sting when Annabelle told me that she was at the optician directly after the doctor’s appointment with her mother to choose a new frame. Why her mother, why not me? But that is now forgotten, because she took me with her today to pick up her new glasses. Me. So I will be the first person to see what she looks like with them. And now we are both sitting in the small shop in the main street. There are large, white shelves with spectacle frames everywhere. The shop is bright and has a friendly charisma. The employee, a somewhat snub-nosed mid-thirties woman, has brought a simple, matt green spectacle case from one of the back rooms. Annabelle sits right opposite her at a small white table. I sit slightly offset to the right. The optician carefully places the case on the table with both hands. It almost looks like a sacred ceremony. I can see how Annabelle’s breath goes faster. We both stare first at the box and then at the employee. It is very quiet in the shop. Surprisingly, one hardly hears any noises from the busy main street in front of the shop windows. “Are you ready for your new glasses” asks the lady friendly. Annabelle nods and idiotically I nod with her. Nothing happens. Our gaze wanders parallel again from the case to the optician. Now she smiles, it seems to me, slightly amused. “Then I ask you to take off your old glasses.” Of course! How stupid of us. Annabelle takes off her black pair of glasses. When she blinks for a very short moment and pinches her eyes together to orient herself without spectacles, my heart makes a jump. Finally the friendly lady opens the box and pulls out the colourless frame with careful movements. “Now I will put on your new glasses.” Carefully the optician moves forward and puts on Annabelle’s glasses with a routine exercise. Then she leans back again to judge her work. The new glasses are very pale, but not colourless. The frame has a slight pink stitch. In contrast to the old glasses with the angular, but also thin black frames, this one seems much more feminine, somehow rounder… more cuddly. I’m amazed how perfectly this frame fits into Annabelle’s face. The glasses are a bit stronger, I can intuitively tell by the type of lenses. In the edges there are slight reflections and somehow they look a bit thicker than their old ones. My mouth is dry. For quite a while a young lady looks at herself proudly in the mirror; she tilts her head gracefully to the left. She stays in this pose for a moment and then slowly turns her chin to the right. Her eyes remain cautiously smiling at the mirror. Finally she turns towards me, questioning me. I am thrilled. I am overwhelmed. I can’t help but hug my girlfriend spontaneously.
This time everything is different. This time Annabelle is more relaxed with her new vision aid. She seems to be honestly happy about it. Again and again she takes off her glasses for a short moment to look at them in her hands. “And how do you find the colour? Too feminine?” “No, not at all. It’s just a very delicate pink. And the inherent colour of the plastic still stands against it.” “Right, the plastic frame - when I held it in my hand for the first time, I thought it looked like an old orthopaedic device. “Orthopaedic? You mean something medical like that?” “Exactly! Just like medical aids used to be. Somehow wacky! I liked that.” “You really chose great glasses. Honestly! It looks so good on you again. You know, I already found your old glasses totally hot, but the new one is perhaps even more horny! Oops, have I gone too far now? Annabelle looks at me somehow strictly. Is that doubt? Is she going to get angry at me again? I swallow violently. Slowly Belle takes off her glasses. “Hm… so that was it all the time. My glasses turn you on. That’s why you stared so much! Confess!” Immediately the blood shoots into my face. I am caught. She knows. What am I supposed to do? “Relax Lucy. Would you like to try my glasses?” Did Annabelle just say that I could put on her spectacles? “Well, come on.” My hands tremble as I take over the eyeglasses. Even before I put them on, I see the neckline reduced by the lenses. For some reason this excites me immensely. Then I finally put on the glasses. What now happens in me is unbelievable. From one moment to the next the whole world seems to have shrunk. I feel like I’m under water. Everything around me becomes quiet and meaningless. Floating through space and discovering the world. It is a bit like in my dreams. I immediately feel that this is my real me. That this has to be so. I am so happy and everything around me becomes blurred with sheer joy… “Hey Lucy… what is it? Are you crying, Lucy?” “Yes, but with happiness!” “Wow.” “Annabelle, I have a confession to make. Since the day you first came to the bus stop with your black glasses. Since that day, I’ve been jealous of you. I… I… also want to wear glasses. I want it so much. It excites me. It excites me so much that I constantly dream about it. I think you are beautiful with glasses and I know I am only complete when I also need glasses”. Now it’s out. Now everything is out. Also the last bit of truth that I had hidden from Annabelle is told now. I look at my girlfriend with red rimmed eyes… me freshly bespectacled… and she without glasses. I am willing to accept any judgement that she would make against me now. “Well, then you must do it. Never thought anyone would feel the same way I do. Wow, slowly it is getting spooky between us. “You… you too? “What were you thinking?” “Well, come on, when you first got your glasses, you weren’t exactly on cloud nine. I mean, you really pissed me off, didn’t you?” “Okay, I wasn’t relaxed, right. But hey: it was my first pair of glasses. I was nervous. I didn’t know how the others would react. And when you stared like that, I thought: Great, even my best friend now thinks I look like a freak!” “No, oh God, Annabelle: No! I didn’t think that for a second! The opposite!” “Yes, now I know that too. I mean, sorry Lucy that I didn’t trust you… you are my best friend. Honestly… and that glasses turn you on too… wow… I mean, it’s creepy that we both have the same, hm we say passion?” “Yes… but you have glasses.” “Hey, no reason to grieve. If you think about it carefully, I don’t only have one pair of glasses. If you want, you can have my black glasses.” “Honestly? Are you serious?” “Sure, why not. I once read on the web that you can also provoke myopia. Just by wearing glasses regularly, because the eye slowly gets used to it… maybe you’re lucky, Lucy.” Tempestuously I fall around Annabelle’s neck. I float! I’m flying! I am already in heaven! Finally, finally I am able to wear glasses. With the horizon of perhaps soon having to wear a vision aid officially. Of course my parents are not allowed to know anything about the plan, but if Annabelle and I do it cleverly enough, they will soon have no other choice.
I now wear “my glasses” as often as I can. Of course, this can only be done secretly. At first Annabelle and I thought I could risk wearing glasses in class - but then we decided against it because the danger that something might leak out to my parents is quite great. But after school we spend a lot of time together: in the city, walking Annabelle’s dog or in our rooms. Because only on these occasions I can wear glasses with no risk. She gives me the case with her old glasses and I put them on quickly. It feels so good to push the cool frame onto my nose. My eyes always need a short moment until the world around me is sharp again, but that’s exactly what I like. In this way I usually manage to satisfy my longing for two, three or even four hours a day. Belle believes that she will have to have her eyes examined again in a year at the latest, and by then my eyes should have adapted to the glasses. This is totally exciting - but I have to be very careful, because my parents are unfortunately not at all good at talking about this topic. They are soo proud of their “good” eyes. And I’m afraid they even find eyeglass wearers ugly. I’m looking forward to Annabelle’s next ophthalmologist appointment. I carefully prepare my parents for possible vision problems by interspersing them here and there, for example that I can’t read something at dusk, that I sit conspicuously close to the TV or that I can’t thread the needle or the thread for my mother, because this damn hole is too small. Each time I get a sceptical look, but my parents are remarkably stubborn about this subject. The whole thing is of course just a trick, because in fact I could easily do everything I pretend I can’t see well enough of. This spectacle can also become really funny when I, for example, pretend in the city that I can’t decipher the bus timetable and that I need to be helped by strangers. Their regretful looks, that such a young girl already has such bad eyes, turn me on. But then it’s usually time to take off my glasses, let Belle hide them and I feel empty, sad and impatient for the next opportunity.
That’s why I can hardly wait until Anna finally gets her annual appointment. The year passes so slowly. I feel like the queue again. Nothing happens. Teachers annoy, parents admonish, buses are late. Leaves fall. Are covered by dirty snow. It thaws. The sun wakes up. The first green in the garden and suddenly the time has come: Annabelle has to see her ophthalmologist in three weeks. She already knows that he will prescribe her stronger glasses again and that makes her happy. Over the last few weeks, Annabelle has gradually brought her mobile phone closer to her eyes, first imperceptibly and then more and more conspicuously. That looked a bit funny. “Hey Belle, a little closer and you can text with your nose.” We both laugh, because this time Anna knows very well that I wish for nothing more than to have exactly this problem. I am so excited. What will the doctor say? But first I have to tell my parents that I also need an appointment. As expected, my wish is not really well received. Sceptical looks again. Are you sure? Nobody in our family has glasses. Maybe you just haven’t slept enough. Seriously? I get a bright red head with rage. And I’m afraid that my parents will simply refuse the check-up. But in the end they give in and agree to the examination. There is a bit of confusion again when I make it clear to my mother that I don’t want her to be there, but that I will have an appointment with Annabelle. But finally she accepts that - I think she was not so unhappy at the end, because otherwise she would have had to take time off from her work. That would be awkward and my mother hates nothing more than awkwardness. Then the time has come. Belle and I sit in the waiting room of the doctor’s surgery. Boring plastic chairs, cheap art prints on the wall, strange designer lights on the ceiling. We wait - this is the first time I feel that waiting is super exciting. Annabelle introduced me to the lady at the entrance - of course she knows everyone in this office. I swallow a small fit of envy because I know I will soon be familiar with the people here myself. Belle was able to convince the employee that we had to go to the doctor for an examination together, because first glasses… best friends… do everything together and so on… The doctor’s assistant smiled and then nodded. Now a second assistant calls us to her, we do a few simple eye tests on a device that looks like a microscope. Numbers, letters and a few characters. Everything goes very quickly and routinely and I can’t estimate in the slightest whether and if so how big the differences between Belle and me were. We now wait in another room, which differs from the first one only by the even uglier art prints. For the 100th time, Belle explains to me what the examination means, what the doctor’s assistants are allowed to do and what not, what the doctor will do afterwards, that I may have to take eye drops to make my eyes wide, whether I thought about the sunglasses… I don’t really listen to her. An incredible tension has built up in me. Everything excites me in surgery. The white blouses of the doctor’s assistants, the smell of disinfectants, the optical devices - but above all the thought that my fate will be decided here in a few moments. Finally it goes on. We are called to the ophthalmologist. A small, stocky man with a clear bald head. He uses a display to check the numbers and results of the tests he received from his colleagues. Then he looks over at us with a smile and greets Annabelle and me warmly. To my great disappointment, he begins his investigations with my girlfriend. He asks Annabelle how she is now coping with her glasses, whether she has noticed any changes in her eyesight, how night vision works and so on and so forth. Finally he clears his throat weightily, takes off his own glasses to clean them a little and then announces to Belle that her eyes have changed further compared to last year. She started at R 2.00 L 2.25, last time it was R 2.75 L 3.00 and now R 3.50 L 3.75 plus a slight astigmatic correction. Belle beams. You can literally see her joy burst out of her face. But then she pulls herself together again and draws the doctor’s attention to me. She tells him that we are schoolmates, best friends and that I have been reporting various vision problems for quite some time. And she, as my best friend, brought me to him, her “best” ophthalmologist. I’m so excited now that I can’t say anything about it. Obviously the doctor didn’t expect an answer from me. He smiles thinly, looks again briefly at the numbers on his monitor and then asks me to take a seat in his examination chair. I have the feeling of sweating all over my body at the same time. He shines into my eyes, asks me to look here and there, to follow a light and finally he folds two metal wings in front of my eyes. The whole procedure arouses me madly, I get hot and cold. I have to pull myself together very hard not to groan loudly. Hopefully you can’t see it from the outside. Now I have to look through a kind of giant telescope. Naming letters. Recognize the direction of an arrow. Right, left, left again. Now the different lenses must come right now, it shoots through my head. I’m getting wetter and wetter. “Good,” says the doctor. “Good, good” and then folds the two metal wings to the side. “I checked my assistant’s test results again and the good news is you don’t need glasses.” WHAT??? “You know, Lucy, we humans don’t always see as well. Our vision is constantly subject to fluctuations. That’s why it might well be that you sometimes see a little worse in front of the TV in the evening. That’s not an illusion. No, but the cause can be manifold: Tiredness, poor lighting, hormones, your growth, trouble at school and etc… but - and I’m quite sure of that - no ametropia.” My head is puzzled. I am completely confused. What is happening here? That can’t be true. I stare at the doctor with my mouth open. “If at all, you have a tiny visual impairment. Not worth mentioning. So you can calmly go home and give your parents the all-clear.”
tbc