Prompt: I can see clearly now

Jessica adjusted the flimsy dark plastic glasses against her eyes as she walked out of the Westin lobby into the bright sunlight flooding every corner of Copley Plaza. She flinched as it his her super-dilated eyes and questioned the wisdom of going for her eye exam at lunchtime. She had to walk three buildings down to her office. In retrospect, it might have been better to go at the end of the day, when she could have gone straight down to the blessedly dark T station.

Well, no hope for it now. She squinted and stepped into the light. She didn’t have to think about where she was going, so it was just a matter of avoiding other pedestrians. Concentrating on not bumping into anyone, she began to notice things looked blurrier than usual.

Stranger than usual. Did that woman have a bird on her shoulder? Oh, no, just a folded parasol. Wait, did that guy have enormous arms and hands? She squinted and stared, then shrugged. No, just buff. But hadn’t they just…

A pigeon burst into the air in front of her, and she drew back. As she watched, it turned and flew straight at her…breathing a small jet of flame?!

She jumped back and shouted in alarm, startling several people around her, before they all returned to their usual blind courses. All but a young girl balancing on a park bench, carrying a balloon on a string and sucking on a lollipop. The girl watched her closely, and Jess looked around for an adult paying attention to the child. There didn’t seem to be anyone. The girl jumped down and ran over to Jess, letting the balloon fly up into the air without a backward glance.

She reached out and grabbed Jess’s hands and tugged her toward the nearest bench. Jess was so bemused, she followed without question, trying not to stumble on the changes in the pavement. The girl pulled on her hands, and she sat on the bench, blinking blurrily at the girl’s face, now level with her own. As she struggled to focus on the girl’s blurred features, they changed. Her nose lengthened, and her ears curled to pointed tips. Her eyebrows waved like feathery tendrils over her silver, almond-shaped eyes. And when she smiled, her teeth were needle sharp.

“You see me,” she exclaimed, in a voice that sounded like crunching leaves and silver bells all at once.

Jess snatched her hands away, and the little girl reappeared, superimposed over the strange face like an old photograph. Jess gasped. “I don’t know what I see!”

Dogs in house	Houdini, Brindle
Music	Frozen soundtrack
January word count	10,965