SEE?

 

There’s this optometrist four blocks from my apartment. I think something’s wrong with 

the place.

It’s part of a long stretch of businesses crowded inside this mid-century behemoth on the good part of Lancer. You’ve got a spa on the left, a bridal shop on the right, and a hodgepodge of failing mom and pop stores competing for space in the middle. They’re stuffed with esoteric junk that’s being sold for more than what they’re worth to people who don’t know the value of money. I’m not one of those people.

Anyway, wedged between Antiques & Wonders and a nondescript co-opt lies my current object of obsession. SEE? barely takes up a sliver of space amongst the myriad of storefronts, coal-black and strewn with ivy like a bunch of itchy Christmas garland. They’ve got a massive neon eyeball that hovers above the door that I personally believe is concealing a security camera. The most inscrutable hiding places always end up being the obvious ones--and what’s more explicit than putting a camera in a massive pupil?

The reason I think something is off is because they literally won’t let me in the building-- and no, I’m not exaggerating. Believe me when I say I’ve exhausted all my options.

The first time I jingled the bell on their poorly-painted doorknob (which was also meant to resemble an eyeball) was sometime mid-October. I was on the hunt for blue-light glasses since my constant screen time was beginning to affect my sleep patterns. When I walked in, I was immediately greeted by a woman who not only exuded perkiness, but was perhaps the Oxford definition brought to life before my eyes. She wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that made her look like a pop-eyed goldfish and had a pearlescent dream of an orthodontic smile.

“Hello there! Welcome to SEE? Vision. Do you have an appointment with us today?”

I scratched the back of my head. There wasn’t a single person in the lobby.

“No, but I was just looking for some--”

“Well without an appointment, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.” The woman said coldly. She contorted her grin into a pursed clam shell of faux-sympathy, and I briefly considered kicking the desk. Instead, I composed myself, and said:

“Sorry.” (which I didn’t really mean), “I was just looking for some blue light glasses. I’m at my computer all day, and the screen just strains my eyes.”

“Appointments only, I’m afraid.” The receptionist wasn’t even looking at me now, but she kept that grin in place like it was her job. It was sickeningly sweet-- like a stale, brittle cookie-- and one bite away from crumbling. 

“ I just need some blue light glasses.”

“I understand that, sir. You can make an appointment with one of our optometrists if you’d like to come back. We just don’t accept any walk-ins. Store policy, I’m afraid.”

I was starting to lose my patience. I don’t know if it was the frustrating absurdity of the whole appointment system or the receptionist’s cheerful cadence, but I felt my heart start to pulse in my throat. I wanted to kick her desk with all my might, then find out where the dreadfully repetitive elevator music was coming from and break the machine that was playing it. It could only take the ho-hum of flat saxophone toots for so long.

“Okay.” I finally said, “Let me make a damn appointment.”

“Sure!” The woman spun around in her swivel chair and promptly produced a business card. “Visit the website listed here to request a consultation with one of our optometrists. We will notify you shortly if we believe you’re a good fit.”
“Consultation?” I exclaimed. “Why do I need a consultation if I just want to purchase--”

“Have a nice day.”

Still donning her smug little grin, the receptionist placed a gold-plated notice on the desk that read “ON BREAK. WILL RETURN SHORTLY” and immediately dismissed me. And instead of getting up to go to the break room (assuming there was one in such a small establishment) she turned her attention to the horrendously outdated office PC and began to click-clack with her manicured nails. I stared at her painstakingly starched shirt and pin-up style curls, likely held into place by a whole can’s worth of hairspray, which made me even more irate. This woman embodied the very definition of prim and proper while I stood there and stewed like a raging lunatic. 

Frustrated and terse, I stomped back home with a resounding gait, not even waiting for the crosswalk symbols. Like a russet potato in a blanket of foil, I was baking from the inside out, and I half expected steam to roll off me the instant I took off my jacket. Skin still intact, I flung my bomber on the arm of my couch and plopped down at my desk.

My 2005 Macbook booted up with a cough, its now-opaque screen sputtering to life like a mummy rising from the grave. Although two new models have released since I bought this old dinosaur, I still wasn’t ready to part with it yet. As soon as the lock screen faded to the home screen, I clicked on my browser and typed in SEE?’s website.

But of course, the website wasn’t loading. I watched the tiny progress bar struggle to push forward before it completely gave up and gave me an error code. I’M SORRY, my computer told me, BUT THE WEBSITE YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH DOES NOT EXIST. CHECK THE URL OR CONTACT APPLE SUPPORT FOR HELP.

The fire-breathing dragon lying latent in my gut began to rise and roar. I pulled out my cheaters to double-check the business card, running my fingers across the neatly pleated letters engraved into the center. It was printed in a rather obnoxious script--something akin to Times New Roman but with a more dramatic flourish-- and adorned with a barebones eyeball logo. The card itself was rather flimsy, and the information on it was annoyingly scant. Besides the company name, the only writing on the front or back was a small, hardly legible blurb that said: Come and SEE? Make an appointment with us at www.seethefuture.com.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I mumbled. The worst part was that I wasn’t sure if the website wasn’t loading because it was bunk or because my computer was a geriatric nightmare. I stalked off into another room to avoid punching a hole through the screen and smothered myself into sleep.

________

The next morning, I dragged my body back to the shop-- but not before stopping at the local library to test out SEE?’s website. I was a panting whirl of body heat and crinkled leaves as I plopped down at my station, the creak of the computer chair letting out a helpless whimper at the impact of my weight.

Disconcerting eyes burned me from all directions. The collective gaze of the hoi polloi wasn’t long enough to be considered a glare, but just long enough to make me uncomfortable. I felt like some lucrative felon booting up my computer and punching in the URL, feeling their judgment corroding the back of my skull. Still picking leaves out of my hair, I watched as the search bar slowed down and faltered before showing me the fated 404 error.

“Fuck.” I muttered under my breath. “Goddamn fucking liars. I can’t believe this.”

My knees buckled briefly as I sprung up like a rocket. I shoved my computer chair backwards and entertained a nonsensical thought about what font the 404 was written in.

“Hey man, not cool. There are kids here.”

I spun around to see a rotund man with thinning hair. He continued to chide me in a not-so-quiet whisper even as I stalked out the door. I’d like to think he got his kicks shushing people in movie theaters and flipping off drivers pulling through the crosswalk. There were also no kids in the library.

I was a live wire as I stomped to the optometrist. The bitter gales slithered through my nose and throat, coating my insides with a layer of ice as I sprinted across the pavement in a mad dash to the street. But with just my luck, I arrived at every intersection each time the traffic lights changed, and had to stand there, shivering, silently loathing all the drivers nestled snugly in their cars. 

After ten excruciating minutes, that giant metal eyeball finally came into view. I clobbered through the double glass doors, gasping for warm air, contemplating the irony of being grateful to seek solace in a wretched place like this. As expected, the receptionist remained at her perch, hair scrupulously tied into a knot, pencil jutting from her ear like a stake. The flesh of her lips stretched into thin lines of pink bubblegum at the sight of me approaching. I once again noticed her trim appearance juxtaposing my disheveled hair, and became slightly more irate at her unflinching tidiness.

“Hello sir, how can I---”

“It doesn’t work.” I exclaimed, slapping the card on the desk. I was still out of breath from the harshness of the wind, and my lungs ached for respite. “Your website. It won’t…it won’t load on my computer.”

“Well that’s odd. Have you tried another platform?” She asked, not skipping a beat.

“As a matter of fact, yeah. I just came from the library. It didn’t work there either.” I pushed the business card over the edge, letting it tumble down into her lap. “So tell me: What’s the deal? Is this a Ponzi scheme or something?”

For just a fleeting moment, the receptionist looked nonplussed, and I tried to suppress my own grin. Within the blink of an eye she was her sharp old self again, eyes glimmering with an almost phantasmagorical glow. I could be convinced she was just as real as this whole operation.

“Well, that certainly is odd. Maybe our servers are down. Thank you for notifying us of this problem-- our tech crew will resolve the issue at their earliest convenience.”

“No.” I said, standing my ground. “I don’t buy that bullshit for a second. You have a working PC. You’re telling me you didn’t notice your own website not working right?”

“That’s just it, sir. My job is to take calls and schedule appointments.”

“Well I want another way to schedule one. Who knows how long your site will be down? Days? Weeks? Months?” I leaned in close, as if telling a secret. “Or perhaps it never even worked in the first place.”

“That’s quite enough sir! Please leave the vicinity before I’m forced to find you an escort.” The receptionist’s eyes had narrowed into slits and her nostrils were flaring like a bull’s. From far away she still would’ve looked composed, but up close I could see she was starting to crack.

Running out of ways to circumvent her threat, I lifted my soggy feet and began to pivot backwards, but somehow, each step was like dragging dead weight. It was as if my whole body was rejecting their orders, unrelenting in their fight to simply walk out and wave the white flag. But unfortunately, I’d already made my stand, and there was nothing else left to do unless I wanted to end up with a restraining order-- although it was wildly tempting to leap over the desk and shake the answers right out of this woman.

But just then, I heard the sound of an office door open. My head swiveled with owl-like dexterity as I turned to see a young man stumble out. He was panting, exasperated, donning the most gaudy and embellished specs I’d ever seen. Even from a distance I could see two crimson jewels jutting out from the rims like avant-garde devil horns, but the midnight hue of the lenses completely obscured his eyes.

“Mister Larson?”

“That guy!” The man shouted, tongue limp in his mouth like a body. “That fellow over there-- he knows!”

“He knows what, Mister Larson?” The receptionist inquired, cautiously rising from her chair. I stood agape as the patient staggered towards the middle of the room, grasping at anything solid. In a sudden lapse of sanity I pictured him falling, knocking into the woman and sending her crashing to the ground. She’d shatter into a million tiny pieces like a porcelain doll, visage breaking into spider-like faults.

Instead, she put her hands out to steady him.

“Mister Larson, please calm down. Is everything alright? Would you like a water bottle to settle your nerves?”

The man continued to stutter, an animatronic low on battery. He grabbed at his glasses and flung with fury, then backed away carefully. He was acting like they were an Oedipal oracle.

“I saw it…I saw it happen. That man’s gonna tell everyone about us!” Mister Lawson bumbled with rage. It was then I realized he wasn’t a patient, but rather an off-duty optometrist. I espied a white lab coat snoozing on a chair in the office he emerged from. It was also then that I realized, to my shock and horror, that he was ostensibly blind.

As I inched back towards the desk, I noticed how sallow he looked. Two cloudy, robin-blue marbles swirled around in his eye sockets, both pupil and iris opaque like cyan mucus. They were framed by a fuschia ring of irritation, peeling skin. Below that was a mouth agape in terror, pulled into an upside-down crescent of a frown.

“Jesus, dude! Back away! What the hell happened to your face?”

“Get out of here!” The man bellowed. “Get out and never come back!”

Before the doctor could respond, the receptionist was leaping from her desk and shoving me out of the door. She was scurrying around in absurdly large heels, her nails like spikes in my back.

“Sir, I think it’s time you leave.” She said with a wavering breath. “ And I regret to inform you you’re not allowed back in this building.”

Still in shock from the optometrist’s face, I quietly left without protest. On my way out, I furtively snatched his mysterious glasses and tumbled back into the cold.

________

I tried to return to SEE? three times the following week. Just the sight of my face scares the receptionist shitless. Each time she sees my ugly mug she scurries to the double glass doors and flips the OPEN sign to CLOSED. It’s almost become a sadistic game, taunting her like that. Watching her knees snap like pop rocks, wondering if one day she’ll break her skinny ankles in those Frankensteinian heels. I know I’ll never step foot in that establishment  again, so what’s the harm of a little stoll on the left side of the street on my way to pick up groceries? Especially if it gives the receptionist a dainty fright in the process.

The optometrist’s glasses still sit on my desk, collecting dust like a museum piece. The glimmering rubies have become clods of blood embedded in their golden frame, the red eyes of hellhounds granting sight to the doctor.

His words still echo in my head every morning. He knows! is like a siren call bouncing around in my brain so many times it loses meaning. I know? What exactly do I know, and how does he know something I don’t even know myself?

I pick up the glasses and twirl them around. My chintzy blue-light frames fall to the floor and bounce under my bed. They’re heavy, these glasses, almost like they’re made of gold. The arms slide into place behind my ear and nestle themselves amongst my curls, but the tint of the lenses is too dark to be functional. Stumbling like a drunkard, I made my way to the medicine cabinet, relying on the chalkboard outlines shapes around me to move.

By the time I reach the bathroom, the world around me is dusk. Flipping on the light switch does nothing to help, and I can barely make out the ghost in the mirror. A dull burning sensation blazes behind my eyes, but I’m too morbidly intrigued to take off the frames and be blinded by the stark incandescence.

Instead, I’m blinded--- literally.

What feels like battery acid begins to corrode my vision. I double over from the pain, nearly slipping on my pants leg and wiping out on the tile. The bathroom is throbbing, dimming with each pulse, a black heartbeat plunging me into an infinite abyss. I slip on my second attempt to retreat back to my room and whack my head on the doorknob.

A flush of red, then clarity.

A foggy vision of myself in the…in the optometrist’s office? I rub my eyes until kaleidoscopes appear, but I can’t erase the scene before me. A phantasmic version of myself is standing in the lobby with a cane, mumbling indistinct curse words. The receptionist is shrieking, her dental-office smile a contorted collection of teeth, her face flushed with blood-red fear. All the while my bathroom mirror lurks in the background like an overlay, two scenes colliding with a cataclysmic crash.

I take off my glasses in the vision, revealing a set of eyes identical to the murky blue marbles haunting the optometrist. I’m screaming something like “You! You’re the one who did this!” as I chuck the same glasses I have on at the door. They shatter like china, but my eyes remain the same.

Almost instinctively I reach for the frames and remove them with shaky hands. Blinking, I splash my face with ice-cold water, but everything around me is faint, caught and strangled by black mesh. I can make myself out in the mirror if I get close enough to touch it, and instantly recoil at the sight.

My eyes were blanched, my sockets inflamed. Like Tiserias, I had become a blind prophet. Although fleeting and unstable, I knew I had witnessed the future, and in a way I had never imagined, I could finally see.