'I know you don't. But the bell will be ringing soon, and we don't want to make them miss the bus. Mr. Beasley gets very annoyed when we miss the bus.' 'But they were awfully mean.' Her eyes are hurt and angry. 'Yes, I know they were, and I'm going to use the paddle on them. But they've been rocks a long time-scared rocks. They know now that you can be mean back at them, so they'll probably let you alone and not bother you any more. Go on, take them outside.' She's looking at me intently. 'Remember, your mama said mind the teacher.' Her jaws tighten. The three rocks click together in her hand. She is going out the door. It swings shut jerkily behind her. Now I am waiting for the doorknob to turn again. I believe, I believe, I believe- THROUGH A GLASS – DARKLY I FINALLY GOT SO FRIGHTENED that I decided to go to Dr. Barstow and have my eyes checked. Dr. Barstow has been my eye doctor for years-all the way from when a monkey bit and broke one lens of my first glasses, up to the current encouraging me through getting used to bifocals. Although I still take them off to thread a needle and put them back on to see across the room, I take his word for it that someday I'll hardly notice the vast no-vision slash across the middle of every where I look. But it wasn't the bifocals that took me to Dr. Barstow. And he knew it. He didn't know that the real reason I went to him was the cactus I saw in my front room. And I could have adjusted to a cactus-even in the front room, but not to the roadrunner darting from my fireplace to my hall door and disappearing with the last, limp two inches of a swallowed snake flapping from his smirking beak. So Dr. Barstow finished his most thorough investigation of my eyes. Then he sat straddling his little stool and looked at me mildly. 'It takes time,' he said, 'to make the adjustment. Some people take longer-' 'It's not that, Doctor,' I said miserably, 'even though I could smash the things happily some times. No, it's- it's-' Well, there was no helping it. I'd come purposely to tell him. 'It's what I see. It's that cactus in my front room.' His eyes flicked up quickly to mine. 'And right now I'm seeing a prickly pear cactus with fruit on it where your desk is.' I swallowed rackingly and he looked at his desk. For a moment he twiddled with whatever ophthalmologists twiddle with and then he said, 'Have you had a physical check-up recently?' His eyes were a little amused. 'Yes,' I replied. 'For exactly this reason. And I truly don't think I'm going mad.' I paused and mentally rapped a few spots that might have gone soft, but they rang reassuringly sound 'Unless I'm just starting and this is one of the symptoms.' 'So it's all visual,' he said, briskly. 'So far,' I said, feeling a flood of relief that he was listening without laughter. It had been frightening, being alone. How can you tell your husband casually that he is relaxing into a cholla cactus with his newspaper? Even a husband like Peter. 'All visual except sometimes I think I hear the wind through the cactus.' Dr. Barstow blinked. 'You say there's a cactus where my desk is?' I checked. 'Yes, a prickly pear. But your desk is there, too. It's-it's-' 'Superimposed?' he suggested. 'Yes,' I said, checking again. 'And if you sat down there, it'd be your desk, but-but there's the cactus-' I spread my hands helplessly, 'With a blue tarantula hawk flying around over it.' 'Tarantula hawk?' he asked. 'Yes, you know, those waspy looking things. Some are bright blue and some are orangy-' 'Then you see movement, too,' he said. 'Oh yes,' I smiled feebly. Now that I was discussing it, it wasn't even remotely a funny story any more. I hadn't realized how frightened I had been. To go blind! Or mad! 'That's one reason I asked for an emergency appointment. Things began to move. Saturday it was a horny toad on the mantel which is a ledge along a sand wash. But yesterday it was a roadrunner with a snake in his beak, coming out of the fireplace. The hearth is a clump of chaparral!' 'Where is the wasp now?' asked Dr. Barstow. I checked briefly. 'It's gone.' And I sat and looked at him forlornly. He twiddled some more and seemed to be reading his diploma on the wall behind me. I noticed the thin line across his glasses that signaled bifocals and I wondered absently how long it had taken him to get used to them. 'Did you know that every time you look at your-um-cactus, you look away from where you say it is?' he finally asked. 'Away from it!' I exclaimed. 'But-'' 'How many fruits on the prickly pear?' he asked. I checked. 'Four green ones and a withered-' 'Don't turn your head,' he said. 'Now what do you in front of you?' My eyes swam through a change of focus. 'You, holding up three fingers,' I said. 'And yet the cactus is where my desk is and I'm almost at right angles to it.' He put down his three fingers. 'Every time you've checked the cactus, you've looked at me, and that's completely away from where you say.' 'But what-?' I felt tears starting and I turned away, ashamed. 'Now turn your head and look directly at my desk,' he said. 'Do you see the cactus now?' 'No,' my voice jerked forlornly. 'Just the desk.' 'Keep your eyes on the desk,' he said. 'Don't move your head. Now check my position.' I did-and then I did cry-big sniffy tears. 'You're sitting on a rock under a mesquite tree!' I choked, pulling my glasses off blindly. He handed me a tissue. And another when that became sodden. And a third to wipe those blasted bifocals. 'Does having the glasses off make a difference in what you see?' he asked. 'No,' I sniffed. 'Only I can see better with them.' And I laughed shakily, remembering the old joke about spots-before-the-eyes. 'Well, Mrs. Jessymin,' he said. 'There's nothing in the condition of your eyes to account for what you're seeing. And this-um-visual manifestation is apparently not in your direct vision, but in your peripheral vision.' 'You mean my around-the-edges sight?' I asked. 'Yes,' he said. 'Incidentally you have excellent peripheral vision. Much better than most people-' 'Of my advanced age!' I finished, mock bitterly. ''These dern bifocals!' 'But bifocals aren't necessarily a sign of age-' 'I know, I know,' I said, 'Only of getting old.' We had automatically dropped into our usual bifocal speech pattern while our minds busied themselves elsewhere. 'Does this thing bother you when you drive?' he asked. I was startled. What if they took my license! 'No,' I hastened. Most of the time I don't even notice it. Then sometimes I catch a glimpse of something interesting and then's when I focus in on it. But it's all voluntary-so far. Paying attention to it, I mean.' 'And you focus in as long as you look away from it.' Dr. Barstow smiled. 'As a matter of fact, some things can be seen more sharply in peripheral vision than by looking directly at them. But I'm at a loss to explain your cactus. That sounds like hallucination-' 'Well,' I twisted the tissue in my fingers. 'I have a sort of idea. I mean-where our house is-it's in a new housing development-it was all desert not too long ago. I've-well-I've wondered if maybe I was seeing the same place, only before. I mean, when it was still desert.' I tried a smile, but Dr. Barstow didn't notice. 'Hmm,' he said, looking absently again at his diploma. 'That would certainly put cactus almost anywhere you looked, in Tucson,' he said: 'But how long ago are you seeing? This office building is fifteen years old.' 'I-I don't know,' I faltered. 'I haven't thought it out that far.' Dr. Barstow looked at me and smiled his infrequent, wide smile. 'Well, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with you,' he said. 'If I were having an experience as interesting as the one you're having, I'd just enjoy it. I'd start a little research into it. Or at least start compiling a few statistics. How long ago are you seeing? Is it the same time period every time? What else can you see? People? Big animals? Enjoy it while you can. It arrived out of nowhere, and it might go back to the same place.' He stood up. So did I. 'Then I don't have to worry-' 'Not about your eyes, anyway,' he assured me. 'Keep me posted if anything new develops.' I turned to the door. His voice paused me there. 'By the way, if Tucson were wiped out, eventually the cactus would come back. Are you seeing ago or to come?'
