The Angel
- The Girl and the Teacher
There once was this girl at school called Kerry: she was eight years old, not particularly remarkable, but come to that neither was I, but the one thing that set her apart was her thick glasses. They were both ugly and beautiful at the same time, distorting her face horribly but also shimmering and glinting in the light; they were things to catch the eye. I don’t know what her RX was, maybe something like minus 9 or 10, quite a bit for a young girl, and from what little I heard, the prognosis wasn’t great: she may well have ended up partially blind in the seemingly distant future of adulthood.
Then there was Miss Godwinson. She was a supply teacher that came to our school to stand in for a pregnant teacher, whose name I’ve clean forgotten. Miss Godwinson was a lovely young woman, I suppose she looked as if she was only just into her twenties, tall, slim but shapely, with attractive blonde hair; she possessed an incomparable beauty in the perfection of her features and the elegant poise of her posture and bearing. Looking up at her one day I was smitten… she filled my thoughts for weeks after she’d left: this was hardly surprising, being as she wore glasses too. Not for her some weak, feeble, seemingly pointless prescription: these glasses were myodisked, and quite thick too, I imagine something in the minus 25 range. She seemed to squint more than a young child would think necessary, especially into the distance. Lord only knows how she’d passed her driving test. She was a cheery young woman, possessing a lively and kindly disposition and was fun to be taught by, although I dare say my education suffered a little due to the effect of her glinting specs on me! I noticed that Miss Godwinson seemed particularly attracted to Kerry: I thought the reason for this was due to the affliction they shared. Sometimes I overheard her talking to Kerry about her eyesight, and saying things along the lines of “you’ll probably have to wear glasses like mine, and that doesn’t seem right, because you are such a pretty girl.” I simply stored it for future reference: I am like that.
A couple of weeks before Miss Godwinson was due to leave I again found them together, alone, in the classroom. They didn’t see me, thankfully. As before Miss Godwinson was telling Kerry about her eyesight, about how it had become worse and worse, just like Kerry’s was threatening to do and more. Then this tall, elegant teacher laid her hand on Kerry’s head and said ‘Kerry: don’t tell anyone what I’m doing now… I am taking your myopia.’ Kerry didn’t understand, and neither did I, listening and watching from behind a desk at the back. All that appeared to happen was that she patted Kerry on the head.
A few weeks after Miss Godwinson left something did indeed happen. Kerry went to the optician for her regular appointment: there it was discovered that her vision was improving! Everyone concerned was so delighted that none of them stopped to ask how or why. And that was not all: within the space of a year, her vision had improved to the point that she didn’t need to wear glasses full-time, and after a few more months it was discovered that she had no need of them at all. It was amazing, but for me, rather disappointing: something within me was hoping to see Kerry grow up into thicker and thicker glasses, but it was not to be. A couple of years later I left to attend another school and this minor mystery was forgotten in the mad rush to grow up, get a job and get on with life.
- My Friend Leanne
About thirty years after that I started work at an office, employed to do some printing, fiddling around with computers and associated matters. A few months later this young woman called Leanne joined me: she was quite short, not really spectacularly lovely but OK to look at, about twenty. As always, I was attracted by the sight of a bespectacled woman, and here was no exception. Leanne wore a particularly thick pair of myodisk glasses, into the low twenties of power. She didn’t drive because of her myopia. I was almost on the point of asking her out when she let slip that she was a lesbian. I was disappointed, but at least I could still look at her and her strong glasses. As it transpired she asked me out herself, on a sort of friendly works-outing kind of basis, which was fine by me. She told me about her new girlfriend Angela. When she told me, ‘Angela wears thicker glasses than me.’ I was intrigued, and thus waited impatiently to meet her.
About an hour later we walked into the pub, and there she was, an unspeakably lovely, tall, curvy blonde, the sort to die for, wearing the thickest glasses I’d seen in ages: they must have been getting on for 20mm thick at the sides, incredibly strong things, well over minus 30. She squinted heavily at me and Leanne, smiled at me, and said, ‘hi… I’m Angela.’ Something began to kick inside me as we sat around a table chatting. I said something to lead the conversation towards vision, and Leanne said, ‘yeah, that’s probably why we’re so suited, because neither of us can see that well…’ Angela gave a little smile, and to me it seemed as if she knew more than she was letting on; soon after our conversation moved onto other topics.
After a while I went home, but I didn’t forget about it: the thought of Angela kept nagging at me, with her thick shiny glasses and strange, knowing smile, but I couldn’t work out why. Was it the glasses? Probably… then possibly not. The weekend came before I began to realise the truth: it was that I’d seen Angela before. I started racking my brains, trying to remember where and under what circumstances I’d come across her in the past, but nothing came to mind. Weeks passed by; once or twice Angela turned up at work to meet Leanne, but although my mind was tickled, I just couldn’t think where I’d met her previously.
I moved house about 2-3 months after that, but stayed in the same area and in the same job. While I was rummaging around looking for things to dispose of before moving, I found in a long-forgotten box some old photos from my childhood. Out of curiosity I sat in my attic looking through them: they were the usual sort of things that might be expected, baby photos etc, then my hand fell on some from my half-forgotten school days. I was pictured wearing uniform in one, looking quite smart despite my desires to the contrary! And then there was another photo, a sort of end-of-term picture of all the class and the teachers. I peered closely at it, looking for myself in the rows of children… then I saw Kerry, still wearing her glasses at that point. And there at the end was a tall, shapely young teacher: Miss Godwinson. It all came flooding back, even that odd thing with Kerry’s glasses that I’d witnessed years ago. But that wasn’t the oddest thing: because looking at me out of the camera, peering and squinting through a thick pair of glasses was… did my eyes deceive me? No… for it was none other than Angela, Leanne’s girlfriend!
I sat back, and then peered again to be sure. It was true, or so it appeared to be. But how? That photo was thirty years old, yet Angela was nowhere near thirty. If it wasn’t some odd trick of the light or chance resemblance, if an extremely close one, then the Miss Godwinson I’d known from school had to be over fifty by now. I looked again, partly hoping I’d made a mistake. I had not. Evidently Miss Godwinson, or Angela, or whatever her name really was, was not what she appeared to be.
- The Truth
I was determined to find out more about Angela/Miss Godwinson. I went through all the records and dates I could about the school, and anything else I could find about her. Her employment record seemed very odd to me: Miss Godwinson had only ever worked at my school for those few short months, and nowhere else in the country. Perhaps she’d changed her name just for this, but the reason why eluded me. As far as her “Angela” persona went, I didn’t get far being as I couldn’t wheedle her surname out of Leanne without suspicion. I tried searching around for “Angela Godwinson” on the electoral register and all sorts of obvious places. She barely seemed to exist.
Then came a clincher, and quite by chance. A relative sent me a birthday present in a cardboard box padded out with newspaper, obviously the local paper where they lived. This paper had a habit of publishing old photos, some from only a decade or so ago, some from way back from the first ever photos. This one was a particularly old one, grainy and coarse, but quite usable in a newspaper. I happened to look at it, and thought that it looked familiar: it was a school photo eerily similar to the one I’d found in my attic, but at least 60 years older, judging by the fashions. I looked at the tall, slender young female figure on the left of the group of school children, and gaped at it. Because this woman - a teacher from her bearing - wore instantly familiar thick glasses. There was no mistaking her form and beauty… it was Angela, again. There she was, unchanged by nearly a century of time, apart from somewhat thinner glasses.
I drove up to the newspaper office and got myself a clearer copy of the print, perhaps hoping that I was wrong. But I wasn’t. Angela, my workmate’s girlfriend, stood there. I had no idea why or how, but it occurred to me that maybe whoever or whatever Angela was, she was up to something, possibly dangerous to Leanne, and who knew, me too? I resolved to challenge Angela the next time I saw her. We all arranged for a drink after work some days later. I took the photos with me, and as much other material as I thought necessary to prove that I had something on her: perhaps she’d tell all. I certainly hoped so, because I hadn’t a clue what was going on, apart from now knowing that there was something very odd about Leanne’s girlfriend.
I waited impatiently until Leanne went to the ladies, and then I began, asking, ‘Angela, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’ Angela shrugged noncommittally, as if not quite convinced I was asking an innocent question, which I wasn’t at all. I then said ‘I remember seeing you in 1972. You came to our school for a few months.’ A ghost of unease flickered across her face. She replied, ‘yeah. I was there. I was one of the kids. Nice school. I can’t remember you though.’ ‘I’ve got a school photo, I found it a few months ago. Go on, take a look.’ I produced it, then handed it to her.
Angela stiffly took the photo, and peered closely at it: her glasses had long since been monovisioned, so she could only see close up with her left eye. She commented, ‘yeah. Is that you?’ I nodded. She said innocently ‘I can’t see me… maybe I’m not on it.’ She handed it back to me, so I said, ‘yes, you are. Here.’ I pointed. She looked again and her face showed recognition. As if she was hoping that I hadn’t worked out that something was going on, she commented, ‘oh yeah…’ I then offered the other photo. She took it, peered at it, then commented, ’this is very old…' I then saw her mouthing, when she realised she was in that one too, ‘Ah… shit.’
She sat back and stared at me through her thick glasses. Resignedly she said ‘I suppose I should have been a little more careful when the camera was pointed at me. People will keep on taking my photo.’ In a low voice I keenly asked, ‘who…. what are you? What did you do to Kerry?’ ‘Kerry? Oh, her… OK I’ll tell you what I can. I suppose you could call me an Angel… I’ve been around a long time, how long I don’t know, I just got made and that was that… I just like helping people, that’s all. Why shouldn’t I? I have the power to help poor people sort themselves out, get their lives on track… it costs me nothing… well, almost nothing.’ She tapped at her glasses gently.
After drawing breath, she continued softly, ‘for some reason, don’t ask me why, when I take people’s myopia away from them, some of it stays with me. When you’ve been doing it as long as I have, it really mounts up.’ I took that in for a moment, then asked, ‘do you intend to take Leanne’s Myopia from her?’ Angela sighed unhappily, then continued, ‘well, yes, I would like to do that very much. But the cost to me is so high, if I take her twenty dioptres away I will get another noticeable chunk of poor vision… I don’t relish the idea of going blind.’ At that inopportune moment Leanne came back from the toilet, so I was forced to quickly hide the photos. As I did that, Angela hissed at me, ‘please, don’t tell her about me. It’ll spoil everything.’
- An Offer You Can’t Refuse
Well, I certainly had much to think about when I returned home. Evidently Angela was not what she appeared, which was certainly not human, even with her beauty and curvaceousness; she seemed to be something odd and jarringly out of place in the world. But she intended no harm to anyone: indeed she wanted to help, even at cost to herself, which to me seemed a particularly noble ideal. I didn’t want to wait on events, though, because I had a plan that would benefit all of us: for as long as I could remember, I’d wanted to find some lovely, attractive woman wearing thick glasses. Perhaps a way to do this was to wear them myself… but there was no practical way to do that. Wearing minus glasses over plus contacts might work for some, but for me it didn’t appeal. If I was going to do it, then I’d do it properly or not at all. And now, here was the way to do it: if Angela could take people’s myopia, then hopefully she could give it away too. Perhaps she could be persuaded to give it to me…?
When I next came across Angela, I simply told her that I had a proposal for her: I gave her my phone number, and a few days later we met in a park. When I told her what I had in mind she was shocked, for it went against all the things she’d believed in for her whole long existence. She took a lot of persuading, but the thing that really swung her round was this: if she could have perfect vision back, by giving all the myopia to me, then she could help many other people in future. That certainly appealed to her, thus she consented.
A couple of days later she met me in the park again, and told me, squinting even more than usual, that she had drained Leanne’s myopia and thus her vision was even worse than before. I beckoned her forward, so that she could place her hands on my head for a moment, then she was done. She sat with me for a few minutes, and then said delightedly, ‘I can see… without glasses! It’s been so long!’ I turned to her, my vision starting to blur… She stayed with me, asking if I wanted help getting to an optician. I refused, instead taking the loan of her old glasses, which she now no longer needed. Minutes later she walked across the lawn to the trees opposite, waved goodbye and thanks, and was lost in the deepening blur that I now saw. I never clapped eyes on her again after that, perhaps because I couldn’t be sure who I was looking at. My vision steadied at minus 31 with visual acuity around 20/100, and after a few months I found this lovely woman with glasses even stronger than mine…