[Fiction] Ultraviolet

When they forced our neighborhood into coordinated retreat, my dad and I started stealing contact lenses. We didn’t like our eye doctor, Dr. Goodson. We didn’t think he even noticed.   

Goodson Family Eye Care and Eye Wear was located on a vague residential block in a concrete building shaped like an ice cream cone. Every time I walked through the sliding door, air-conditioning slapped me in the face like a squall. They kept a dehumidifier running at all times, so the indoors was the exact opposite of our local climate. Dr. Goodson was from up north. My dad said his skin was insulated. I didn’t mind. The arctic atmosphere kept me alert, and this helped me steal more effectively. 

The waiting room in Dr. Goodson’s office was one of my favorite places in town. I loved the cushy leather couches, robot coffee maker, flatscreen TV, and the ferns. Hand painted murals of Floridian wildlife decorated the walls. The murals had been there for as long as I could remember. They were faded and peeling now, but I could still make out the brown pelicans soaring over the mangroves, and the little coquina clams. When I was a little kid, my dad used to bring me to my checkups early so we had time to look at the mural and play games. He would secretly pick out the night heron, or the barracuda, then hold my hand and whisper,”I spy with my little eye…”

Dr. Goodson got to know us pretty well. My dad’s eyesight deteriorated at an alarming rate, and by third grade I wore glasses as thick as hurricane windows. In middle school, my prescription changed so fast that we set up homemade vision tests in our kitchen. My dad outlined giant E’s and tiny x’s and taped them along the wall, then made me stand there and hold a soup spoon over each eye. 

“Did you check in?” a voice asked. I jumped and attempted to sink further into the couch. It was the nurse with jellyfish tattoos, who I avoided at all costs. I imagined her asking me to leave and gripped my throat.

“Not yet,” I said. 

“It’s never too soon,” she replied in a clipped voice. I exhaled and followed her to the check-in desk. She needed to see my insurance card. I rummaged in my backpack, which I carried with me everywhere. Inside, I had dried mango, water bottles, a flashlight, and a poncho in case of emergencies. The nurse frowned at my card.

“This number isn’t working,” she said. 

“Hmm.”

“You’ll have to pay in full.”

I nodded, like right-o.

“We can squeeze you in at 4:30. Do you want to pay now, or later?”

“Later,” I said. 

The nurse sighed and escorted me back to the waiting area. I fixed myself a coffee with hazelnut creamer and reclined in the armchair by the window. Here, I had a better view of my dad’s car, which was parked under a palm tree. He stuck his head out the window and mouthed: STEAL. I sipped my coffee.

Across the street I spotted the red Pizza Hut. My dad used to take me there after our appointments. He gave me quarters for the plastic toy machines, and I walked up and down past the other oily booths, cupping neon treasures in the palm of my hand. My dad sat, waiting for me at our usual table, beaming, his mouth full of chewy golden crust. 

Outside, my dad gestured urgently from the car window. I returned my attention to the mural. Egrets hunted along the shore, stingrays swam around, and a lizard perched on the leaf of a palm frond. I didn’t remember there being a lizard before. My throat tightened around a bubble of grief. Lizards were extinct, now. Their little bodies couldn’t regulate anymore in the heat. I stared at the lizard. He twitched. I blinked. It was a real lizard! He blended into the mural so well that no one noticed. I looked around the empty waiting area, at the nurse, typing away. 

“What the heck”, I whispered. 

When I was younger, it was my job to trap the reptiles and bugs that snuck into our house. My dad wasn’t afraid of anything except cockroaches. I was usually in my room coloring, or downstairs getting a snack, when a high-pitched scream ripped through our house. I grabbed my shoebox of supplies and sprinted down the hall to find my dad cowering in his room, glasses askew, pointing to a dusty corner with giant shaking hands. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would crumble at the sight of an exoskeleton, but there we were. I crammed myself under dressers, into the depths of the closet. Sometimes the hunt took hours, but it was worth it. When I emerged with my tupperware full of air holes, infiltrator safely inside, he would bow to me, hands clasped, like I was a Jedi. 

The lizard sprang off the wall and landed in the middle of the carpet. He froze, all of his limbs tense. I looked around to confirm no one else was seeing this. The lizard glanced at me, then ran towards a plastic fern on the shelf. The fern was skinny and electric green, something you’d never see in the wild. The shelf was tall, black, sparkly smooth. The lizard sprinted towards the fern and leapt. He hit the shelf and bounced off. Landed lightly, like a cat. He glared at the shelf, then squinted at me over his shoulder, like, “can you help?” Then, as if to make a point, he leapt again. Into the fathomless nothingness of the shelf. It must have felt like leaping into a black hole. He glared at me.

“The fern is not real,”I whispered. “How are you even here?”

I was so distracted by the lizard that I forgot my whole plan. When the nurse returned at 4:30, I followed her straight to the exam room. She took some preliminary notes and left me there, thinking. I immediately riffled through the cabinets and filled my pockets with sample sized eye drops. The contact lenses were kept in a storage room beside Dr. Goodson’s office, on the other side of the Eye Wear section. 

I opened the door an inch and peeked out. Sales technicians sat in each corner of the showroom, which was like a forest made of sunglasses. Wooden display cases rose from floor to ceiling. Each sunglass brand had its own shelf, and each shelf had its own species of fake plant. There were plastic poinsettias and plastic palms. Pansies and roses made of felt. Wax cacti in clay bowls. A miniature evergreen tree was dusted with snow. There was no accordance to time of year or bioregion. If aliens found this room, they would have a good understanding of every ecosystem on Earth. 

I watched the technicians oscillate in their swivel chairs. Then I squinted, zeroing in on a stealthier movement across the way. The lizard was jumping from plant to plant with the propulsion of a miniature jaguar. 

Get out of here man, I thought. It’s almost 5pm, you’ll be trapped. Dr. Goodson will get into his convertible and leave you here till Monday. Those plants are fake, you’ll starve. 

“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I’ll put you in my backpack.”

I ducked out of the exam room and entered the forest. I stayed low, prowling. From time to time, I put on a pair of sunglasses and took them off as a diversion. But the technicians were prepared. The one covering the north quadrant had an advantage. He was the farthest away, but the others were eating snacks.

“Can I help you?” he asked. He wore periwinkle glasses with gold rims, and despite his quick approach, he sounded unimpressed and wan.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. I watched his face fall, despite himself. “I mean, I don’t think you have what I’m looking for.”

“What might that be?” he asked. 

“I want glasses that cover all of my features,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to know what I’m thinking.”

“So maybe a cat eye?” 

At that moment, the lizard leapt onto a wax begonia and observed me over the technician’s shoulder. 

“Jump in my bag,” I whispered. The lizard crossed his legs, relaxed. That was when I realized he’d been here for a while.

“Dr. Goodson is ready for you now,” someone called. 

Thwarted. 

Dr. Goodson looked more haggard than before. Pale, wrinkled, the collar of his shirt bent at the wrong angle. I stared into his hardened, greyish eyes.

“What brings you in today?” he asked. 

I told him I’d come in for a checkup. 

“You were here…recently,” he mused. “Have you noticed any changes?” 

I said I really couldn’t be sure.

Dr. Goodson made me look through a series of optical devices that clicked and clacked. He blew a tiny puff of air into my eyes. Then he sat back, pensive. 

“Women come in to see me with the whites of their eyes thickened, yellowing,” he said, finally. “They ask me to remove the thickness, and I tell them I can’t. Women always cared about the thickness. Men never used to come in about it. They didn’t even notice. They thought their eyes should be thick. But now, more and more come in every day. That’s how I knew it was becoming more noticeable. The thickness is waxier. The yellow is orange-ing.”

I saw where this preamble was going. 

 “Are my eyes thickening?” I asked. 

Dr. Goodson nodded. My face grew hot. 

 “And there’s no reversing it?” I asked. He shook his head.

 “It’s the ultraviolet rays,” he said. 

 “What can I do?”

 “Sunglasses do the trick. We have a nice selection.”

 “I have sunglasses,” I said. “I wear them all the time.”

Dr. Goodson seemed to be at a loss. He sat quietly as I absorbed my diagnosis.

 “We’re going to have to develop new methods,” I said. He nodded, surprised by my candor. Others hadn’t had such agreeable reactions, I realized. They’d blamed him for their thick eyes. I smiled reassuringly, and he smiled back. I wondered if he checked his family’s eyes. If he had a secret way to protect them from the thickening. 

Dr. Goodson led me into a well-lit area with sinks and mirrors. I sat down to insert my new contact lenses. He stood beside me as I washed my hands and let me choose the color of my contact lens case. Mahogany, I said. There was yellow or green, he said. Green. Once I had my lenses in, he handed me a paper towel to wipe my eyes. I watched him as he stood behind me, in the mirror. He smiled with his mouth closed. We returned to the shadowy exam room together. 

Dr. Goodson set my new contact lens case on the counter and squeezed some solution into each side. The pools brimmed to the top, crystal clear lagoons.

 “How’s your family doing?” I asked.

“Oh they’re pretty good.” 

“I ask because this is Goodson Family Eye Care,” I said. “They are implicated.”

He thought about this, finding it interesting. He positioned my head on the chin holder and went to sit across from me. 

“How’s your family doing?” he added, out of obligation. 

“Our neighborhood was forced into coordinated retreat,” I said. “We lost our house.”

Dr. Goodson sighed, brooding.

“I’ve followed the news,” he replied. I pictured him at the breakfast table, reading the news while eating toast with jelly and cheese. My dad ate toast with jelly and cheese every morning of his life. Sometimes I had sudden cravings for toast with jelly and cheese, even though I didn’t think I’d like it. 

“My dad doesn’t have any savings,” I said. “We’re not sure what we’ll do now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dr. Goodson replied. He moved the metallic limbs and refocused the viewfinder. The optical device clicked and whirred.

“I keep dreaming that I’m in our backyard, underwater,” I said. “The trees are flowering, and all the buds are floating up to the surface.” 

Dr. Goodson peered through the viewfinder. He flipped a switch, and I saw the inside of my own eye. A great yellow atmosphere, wormy with veins. 

“What do you think is going to happen?” I asked. He switched off the device. His grey eye hovered on the other side of the glass.

“We’ll be challenged in new ways,” he said. He looked tired. It was 5pm. 

Dr. Goodson glanced at the clock and repositioned the machinery. My chin fell off the chin holder. Moisture dripped from its small cliff.  

“What we can control,” he said firmly, “is your contact lens prescription.”

“Of course,” I said. “That’s why I came in.”

“So if nothing else, your eyes will be in good shape.” 

“Except for the thickening,” I said. 

“Let’s test those lenses on your peripherals,” he replied. The whites of his eyes looked pearly and soft. “What do you see to the left?”

“A chair.”

“And to the right?” 

It was the lizard. He was moving fast. He looked strong and able. I strained my neck as he ducked and weaved. He scaled the wall and jumped onto a diorama of an eyeball, slid down a curvy green vein and skidded across the countertop. 

Dr. Goodson was frowning at me, a foot away. My eyes must have been zig-zagging all over the place. The lizard rushed towards the open contact lens case. 

“Look this way,” Dr. Goodson said. 

I looked at him, but my peripherals were zeroed in. The lizard sighed with relief. He lowered his head to the contact lens fluid, closed his eyes, and began to drink.

*

I waved goodbye to Dr. Goodson and made a beeline for the backdoor. The nurse was waiting for me there. She handed me two boxes of prescription lenses. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, “But you’re going to have to find somewhere else.”

I nodded and left the office, blinking in the sun of the parking lot. It was about 105 degrees. The palm tree cast a black shadow on the scrubby grass. I knocked on the window of the car. The backseat overflowed with most of our belongings. My dad didn’t hear me. He was asleep with his hands on his chest, the passenger seat leaned all the way back.