The Readers

She reached for the pair of glasses. What a strange thing. To put glasses in Goodwill. Ellie turned the plastic frames over, inspecting them closely. One streak of red ran along the right arm of the frame, a streak at sunset. The remainder of the frames were a unique palette of robin’s egg blue, egg yolk yellow, and a smattering of hunter green. The colors were haunting, tempting, and she caressed the glasses as if greeting an old friend. A very dear friend.

She held them up to the buzzing fluorescent light. No scratches. No damage to the lenses and no line to indicate they were bifocals. Probably just readers. She needed new readers; Ellie had mentioned it to her sister on the phone just this morning. She put them on.

The temple tips slid over her ears, hidden by her short, blunt bob. As an adult, no one ever mentioned her protruding ears, but only because her mom wasn’t there to make her pull her hair back, allowing her ears to stick out even further. No matter how much tape she used to pin her ears down at bedtime, they flopped forward every morning. The glasses snugged down around her ears and were perfectly comfortable. Fit like a glove.

Her vision crisped and cleared, and colors sharpened around her. But they didn’t enlarge anything. And certainly, they didn’t blur her vision the way lenses too strong do. But what she needed was readers. Ellie left the glasses on while she opened her purse, more like a tote bag, full of everything she might need when out and about. She found one of her overdue bills and removed it.

Looking down at the bill, Ellie could even read the small print on how to call if you needed assistance paying. She was amazed that this random pair of glasses would be exactly the strength she needed. They didn’t give her a headache or the strange tugging feeling on her eyeballs when using the wrong strength dime store reading glasses.

She slid the readers off. A small vanilla tag tied on with twine at the left hinge of the frame dangled. In large numbers, $1.00.

But her usual, sometimes incapacitating, indecisiveness stopped her from keeping them. She sighed, folded the glasses, right arm over left, and placed them carefully on the beat-up metal shelf with its chipped flesh-colored paint.

Ellie turned and proceeded to walk down the aisle looking for other treasures. She was only five steps away when she heard the clattering of something lightweight hitting the tiled floor. She looked back and saw the glasses lying, lens side up, on the floor. Oh no. My purse must have knocked them off. She quickly returned, bent down with just the slightest groan, and retrieved them. She stood up and looked around the store. No one saw. Good. She held them up to the light to make sure nothing was scratched or broken.

And that’s how she decided to plunk the glasses down on the counter and tell the teenage clerk, “I’ll take these readers.”

Later at home, she picked up Huckleberry Finn, rereading it for the third time. The words jumped off the page with her new readers. She was pleased with her purchase.

The next day, Ellie stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the eighth floor, where she had been working as a data entry specialist for twelve years now. The elevator moaned and resisted the climb, just like she felt when she had to take the stairs. She leaned against the metal walls, put on her readers, and opened the meeting agenda notes. She looked up and smiled at the other woman who stepped in from the fourth floor.

“What a stunning pair of glasses. I love the colors.”

“Why, thank you! They are brand new for me.”

The lady turned her head slightly at Ellie, “Excuse me?”

“I was just letting you know I just got these glasses.”

“Oh, okay. They look nice on you.” And with that, the woman immediately started scrolling through her phone.

Ellie stood taller, feeling that she was noticed for once.

Ellie started wearing the glasses all the time because she kept receiving compliments. And they did make the world’s colors stand out and swirl, even though they were just readers.

The following week, when she was in the break room mixing her exceptional coffee of three sweeteners and a combination of two creamers, her third today, her friend, Becky, stepped in.

They greeted each other, and Becky sat down. Ellie joined her.

“Geez, do you have to sit with me every time?”

“What? Do you want to be alone?”

Becky looked a bit sheepish. “I didn’t say anything. But I do need a little down time right now."

“Sure, um, I’ll just take my coffee back to my desk. Let me know if you want to talk later.”

Two nights later, there was a Friday night social for the office workers, downtown at a Mexican restaurant. Margaritas would be flowing. With her new poise and her readers in hand, Ellie arrived.

“Well, hi, Ellie. Good to see you here,” the self-appointed group leader said. “You never show up, I wonder why you’re here.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you right.” Ellie’s face fell a bit, not understanding why he would say such a thing. She pushed the readers up farther on her nose.

“I just said good to see you.” And he turned and walked away.

Ellie grabbed a frozen concoction, a bowl of chips and found a table on the outskirts of all the pretty people gathered around the center, talking and laughing.

She looked from one to the next.

She sipped the drink, licking the green frost from her upper lip, and followed up with a chip. She noticed the conversations became softer as the drink dwindled.

She glanced around, smiling if someone returned eye contact. She read in a book that it was a good way to start a friendship.

“Oh, god, I can’t believe she’s here. And in a frumpy dress too.”

Ellie squinted even harder at the receptionist until it made her turn away.

She perused the perimeter, and Bob from marketing returned her smile. As he raised his glass in her direction, she heard him say, “Poor thing, always alone. Wonder what she does in her off hours?”

Ellie was the one to turn away this time. He didn’t deserve an answer.

For the next hour, Ellie drank margaritas and quietly observed the actions of her coworkers. Becky came by and sat down, ready to gossip.

“Hey, friend,” Ellie raised her glass like Bob had done to her.

“Hi, El. How many of those have you had?” Becky giggled.

“I think it’s my third.”

“Better slow down there, don’t want to be the talk of the office.” Becky looked right at Ellie. “Get a grip. You shouldn’t come here just to drink the booze.”

“What? I’m not here just to drink.” She accidentally slammed the glass down.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Yes, you did, I heard you.” Ellie looked down at her drink, and the conversations around her grew a notch. Maybe I have had too much. “I’m just leaving now anyway.” She looked up at Becky, her one friend she counted on.

“Good, just go. Home to your cats and books.”

Ellie stood up, “I can’t believe you! Why would you say that?”

Becky started to laugh and say something, but Ellie turned to walk away. As soon as she did, Becky stopped laughing and changed her tone completely. “I think you’ve had too much to drink. Just go sleep, it'll all be over in the morning.”

That’s when Ellie turned and had an outburst. “How can you call yourself my friend and then make fun of me?” She cringed when she heard herself, knowing how childish it sounded. She looked away from Becky, who had started calling her names, and saw that most of the group had gathered in a semicircle and everyone was staring at her.

She glanced at each one of them, staring them down.

“What a loser.”

“Wow, I didn’t know she was such a lush.”

“Uh oh, MELTDOWN.”

“This should be fun to watch.”

Ellie covered her face, crying, and the chatter stopped. She slid her glasses off to wipe her eyes and looked up. “I’m sorry.”

Everyone was then kind, telling her it was all right, nothing to be sorry for. Here, come have another drink.

She slipped her glasses on and straightened her dress. Looking up again, she heard them all at once, again making fun of her.

“Forget it. I’m going home.” Turning around to leave, the noise fell away.

The restaurant door shut behind her, and the noise stopped. On the way to her car, she heard snippets of conversations, but there was a louder line of talk that was coming through to her. She began looking at the other pedestrians, and after a few minutes, she realized their lips didn’t move when she heard more personal revelations. The woman in the pink dress fantasized about her rendezvous later with Jim. The man on her left heading her way was thinking about the child at home that he would sneak in to see later tonight. It went on like this for the entire block.

Ellie slumped against her parked car and watched what was happening around her until she realized she was reading everyone’s thoughts. She slid her glasses off, and the sounds muted in her brain, and only everyday conversations, murmured into phones, or talking in groups, were heard. She put the glasses on, nothing different. But if someone looked her way and, just like in a book, their eyes met, that’s when the magic happened.

Her readers let her read minds.

The drive home seemed shorter than usual as her own mind was filled with good and bad scenarios about what her new power could do to her and for her.

She kept the glasses for two weeks and started suffering from feelings of persecution and guilt. The enormity of knowing other people’s true feelings was crushing. Was it better to only take people at face value? Paranoia set in and almost paralyzed her from accomplishing her routine tasks. She avoided looking at people’s faces.

One evening, particularly devastating as she had heard too much negativity in the minds of others and learned facts about some that she didn’t know how to handle, she decided she must get rid of the readers. It would be better to be in oblivion. She wouldn’t drop them back in a Goodwill collection. She would destroy them. That was the right thing to do.

After making the decision, she tossed around ideas of how to get rid of the readers. She decided on physically crushing them; pulverize them into tiny shards and bury them in the garden.

She selected her grandmother’s cast-iron frying pan to do the deed. She went to the garage, placed a piece of cardboard on the cement floor, and laid the glasses down. She raised the pan above her head, and with shaking arms held it tightly to swing it down and smash the readers to pieces. Her life would go back to normal.

The following week, Ellie stepped off the elevator on the eighth floor and hooked her tote bag purse over her shoulder. With one graceful move of her left hand, she placed the readers on her face and began her day.