“Have you got the stuff?”

“Yeah, but this stuff doesn’t come cheap. You’ll have to settle for these things.”

“Yuck. Those things are disgusting.”

The door clacked open as the lever slid off of my coat cuff. Half of the door handles in my optometry office were left a bit oversized by some construction oversight. My favorite new staffers always notice it their first or second day here–the sharpest doctors in the visual business need to have discerning eyes.

“Hey hey, I’m Dr. Kensington.” I shake the young man’s hand, babbling through pleasantries I’m sure he expects. The uncomfortable-looking ones are usually here for something other than a routine exam, and the kids that don’t make eye contact are usually fretting over how to explain their symptoms without sounding like a lunatic visionary. “So what’s been going on?”

“I think I’ve developed a blind spot.”

“That’s nothing to worry about. My Spot went blind and lived happily with me for five more years.”

He laughs politely.

“Can you tell me more about it? What feels most worrying to you?”

“I… well, doc, it’s weird. That poster there?” His finger points to the enormous iris of an exploded ocular diagram. “I can’t see that from here. It’s not a blank space or blackness or anything. My perception jumps around that spot. I know something is there because my depth perception around it is messed up, but when I look that way my eyes can’t see anything there unless I move my head around.”

My eyebrows are dumbstruck.

“And the place I can’t see changes every couple days. A few days ago when I made the appointment, it was straight ahead, a bit to the left, really big. I could only see through my peripheral vision.”

“When did this start? Is there any pattern to when it changes?”

He starts to stumble over his words. “Well, I’m not certain about this, but have you heard of a kind of website called, uh, eye bleach? It’s for when, um, someone tricks you into looking at a gross picture online, so you go there and look at pictures of kittens or pretty girls or something to try and get the aftershocks of the awful thing to go away. I remember going to one after seeing something, but I can’t remember what I saw or what I wanted to forget. This must sound weird, but if that’s what it was, I guess it did too good of a job?”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I also poured real bleach onto my eyes.” He grins at me warily.

I laugh politely.

“Just kidding. No, that’s all. What do I do?”

DISCORDANT PAGES SIN DESIGNED
THY SIREN’S TOME I DO UNBIND
BY DEMON’S BRUSH AND INK OF STYX
I SUMMON THEE, HATSUNE MIX

He looked on with satisfaction as his tattered burgundy boots sank below the ooze with a soft gloop. Two days hence his footwear would be sitting on the mushy banks of the swamp, polished to a shine and freshly soled.

The demons in my legs howled and strained against the sandalwood muscle roller. It was painful, but I’d come to trust in the many benefits of regular massage and exorcise.

A high performance cat cable rescued from the litter.

A heavy shoebox labeled “single use antique tables, for parties”.

A dry-erase marker whose ink is always the same color as the board.

A gently worn leather couch that purrs when sat upon. The cushions are very
warm.

An ice pack that never stops getting warmer after it’s taken out of the
freezer.

A carpenter’s level that frantically pushes away from any uneven surface it approaches.

An extremely sharp butter knife. It wishes it could messily carve a steak, slice or skewer crisp and juicy chicken, playfully flay a misplaced finger—anything but spread another year of margarine on whole grain toast.

An ornate cherrywood box about the same size as your grandfather’s hand. The inscription reads, “Contains 8th deadly sin. Please do not open yet.”

A picture frame that always tilts itself. Away from the wall.

A floating question mark that sneaks into conversations and messes with intonation?

Jammed into the dust compartment was a small bottle of fine balsamic vinegar.

“Why is this in here?” I asked.
“Oh, well, that bottle says ‘protect from exposure to air’, so I put it in the… oh.”

Her whole face began to turn red, and my whole heart began to melt.

“What you don’t understand, m’lord, is that it is the conveniences of modern science that have allowed the necromantic arts to flourish”—the phials and trinkets at the belt of his robes clacked as he waved his hands in emphasis—“even as young would-be arcanologists are swayed to the study of miscellaneous lesser-ologies. Let me show you—“

Neils Deepgaze, evening clerk of the Brotherhood of Bargain Blood, cut himself off as he stepped through the wall. I wondered if he was going to show me the man cursed with acres of skin again, the secret behind their mass production of flesh-bound tomes.