Category: Optometry

‘Mr. and Mrs. Jones,’ I beamed, standing up from the folding table that had been assigned to me in the school gym. ‘Thank you so much for coming in this evening.’

‘Hardly gave us much choice, did you?’ Mr. Jones grunted. His wife, an elegant woman in a sleek dress and a necklace made of pearls, slapped him on the shoulder.

‘Now, Harold,’ she scolded. ‘Be pleasant. We’re here for Suzanne.’

He grunted again and took his seat. I smiled politely, even as my soul deflated slightly.

More of these parents, then.

‘Ah, yes, Suzy,’ I said, rifling through my stack of papers for my report on their daughter (finished last night at 11, near the bottom of my bottle of wine). ‘She’s a very accomplished student.’

‘Too right,’ Harold nodded, still scowling.

‘However,’ I hesitated. Mrs. Jones frowned at me.

‘However?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong with our daughter? What is she failing? Is it Maths? I’ve always said she’s terrible at Maths.’

‘No, no, nothing like that,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m worried about your daughter’s eyesight.’

‘Her eyes?’ Mr. Jones said.

‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘I think it might be smart to find a local child’s optometry specialist, to help with her vision.’

‘What’s wrong with her vision?’ Mrs. Jones said, horrified.

‘I’ve noticed she can rarely read off the board, Mrs. Jones,’ I explained. ‘And I checked with all of her teachers – she’s excelling in every class where she sits at the front, and failing others where she sits at the back. It’s a classic sign.’

‘What can we do?’ Mrs. Jones asked, literally clutching at her pearls.

‘It’s not a big deal,’ I quickly consoled her with a smile. ‘Just find an optometrist near the Bayside area who can help with your child’s needs.’

‘You say that like it’s easy,’ Harold interjected, crossing his arms. ‘Like you can just snap your fingers and a list will—’

I slid a piece of paper across the table to them.

‘I took the liberty of printing out a list,’ I said, with a thin smile.

He narrowed his eyes at me – then swiped it off the table.

​​I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I rubbed my eyes to make sure, but even as I removed my hands, there it was – the woman, wrapped in a cloak of golden light, standing in the ankle-deep water.

‘My Lady,’ I gasped, falling to my knees at her angelic beauty, unable to gaze up at her any longer.

‘You may rise,’ she whispered, her voice clear in my ear even from so far away. ‘Rise, child.’

I struggled back to my feet, wincing as my heavy armour clanged with every movement.

‘Good sir,’ she began, tilting her head slightly. ‘Why do you hold your gaze so?’

‘I–I,’ I stammered, unable to lift my eyes any further. ‘I apologise, my Lady. Your beauty is too much for my feeble, mortal vision.’

‘Have you enquired as to a doctor?’

‘A doctor?’ I frowned slightly. ‘My Lady?’

‘Yes,’ she laughed, a most glorious sound. ‘An eye doctor, near the Bayside area.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ I said, almost beginning to cry at the shame.

‘Ah,’ she sighed. ‘Perhaps I am too early for such things. I often find time to be… hazy. Difficult to peer through. Is this also the case with you, gentle sir?’

I frowned again, filled with awful chagrin that such an expression should present itself in her presence.

She laughed again.

‘Never mind, sir, never mind. I see that I have vexed you.’

‘I cannot apologise enough,’ I gasped, dropping my knees back into the dirty sand.

‘Nor should you at all,’ she said. ‘Do make me one promise, noble knight?’

‘Anything,’ I gasped, the oath already building on my tongue.

‘If you should be so lucky as to be blessed with a child… do take them to a children’s optometrist near me.’

‘My Lady?’ I faltered again.

‘Nobody ever looks at me,’ she sighed, putting her hands on her hips. ‘I have to assume it’s a genetic eye thing, you know? So if you could just make sure your kid gets some sort of eye care, I’d love that, please. I miss eye contact.’

I blinked up at her, utterly lost.

I’m moving to Melbourne and I’m currently planning everything involving the switch to the new city. It’s going to be a lot of work. Not only because I’m moving there for a new job and hopefully a chance at a new career, but also because moving, in general, takes a lot of effort. Especially if you’re moving interstate, like I am.

One of the things I looked at when choosing where to live in Melbourne was all of the amenities offered in each area. For example, I wanted to ensure that my area would have a good therapist and optometrist. Bayside seemed like a pretty good option in this regard. It also has a lot of other great aspects, like leafy green parks, safe family surroundings, access to public transport, a dining precinct and a shopping centre. The optometrist is located in this shopping complex, a convenient ten-minute walk from my house. It’ll be great, since the first thing (or one of the first things) I have to do when I arrive in Melbourne is visit a behavioural optometrist clinic to get my eyes checked out. I want to join a local soccer team in Melbourne, but my hand-eye coordination has been a little bit off recently. My vision is unbalanced and blurry, so I feel like I won’t be a very valuable player to my new team until I get all of that stuff sorted out.

In the meantime, there are lots of other things to plan, such as getting my luggage and all of my possessions from my house in Adelaide to my new house in Melbourne. It makes it a little bit easier if I hire someone to do it for me, but it’s also more expensive that way. I need to double check what the salary is going to be at my new job before I go around making those decisions.