A Story About Hiding

Rose-Ann pushed her thick-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose – a habit she exposed every few minutes – as though attempting to drive the glasses through her eyeballs and out the back of her head. As though hoping the lenses might eventually swallow her into their transparent holes. As she pushed her eyeglasses single-fingeredly up the bridge of her nose for the fifteenth time that hour, she nervously stared down the poster straight ahead of her in the austere waiting room of Drs. Nair, Hobart, and Syznicki…

The poster simply depicted a man holding a basket of fresh farmer’s market produce and the line in bold font that read ‘Prevent cataracts today. Eat fresh.’ Beneath the picture of the man, the poster listed in fine print all the ways to prevent cataracts through simple dietary choices.

Rose-Ann didn’t actually take in any of the poster – all she could think about was her upcoming laser surgery to correct her vision.

Technically she didn’t have to go through with it – she was 18 years old and was responsible for her own decisions – but her mother had booked the appointment six months earlier when it was decided that Rose-Ann’s vision was stable and up for surgical correction. Besides, Rose-Ann would likely still be deferring to her mother’s wishes at 45 years of age – and she was certainly not feeling ready to rock the boat now.

She stared through the cataract poster – right through the man’s basket of fresh produce – and thought about how she would be able to hide once her protective glasses were gone. For good measure, Rose-Ann pushed the eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose a few more times than normal and listened to her own heart race inside her chest.