Floaters
“There's something in my eye.”
“There’s something in my eye.” Maureen tugged at her lower eyelid as she leaned across the café table toward her friend, Sharon. The two women were old enough that bartenders never carded them but still too young for the senior discount.
“I don’t see anything,” Sharon said. She snatched her water glass away just as Maureen’s elbow snagged the vase of daisies centered on the tabletop and sent it sliding toward the edge.
“It’s there every time I blink. A blur of something.” Maureen pushed her glasses onto her forehead and planted a greasy fingerprint in the center of one lens.
“You probably have a floater, I have them sometimes. It happens when you get older.”
“Good Lord! If everything’s caused by growing old, then it’s a wonder we’re all still here.” Maureen waved her hand in front of her face as though shooing away a pesky fly. Her black-framed eyeglasses slipped back into place with her fingerprint centered perfectly over her left pupil.
“You should go to the eye doctor, get it checked,” Sharon said.
Maureen carried a great burden of small worries — would it rain after she washed her car, would the milk sour before she could use up the carton, would she find a close parking spot at the mall? And now this, a not so small worry. She’d finally landed a permanent position delivering the mail on a rural route, a job that required hours of driving. How would she drive if the blurry spot took over her entire eyeball?
Later that week, at the optometrist’s office, Maureen explained her problem to the doctor. “It’s a small black blurry spot that comes and goes.” She avoided the word “float” so as not to influence the diagnosis.
“If you blink does it go away? Any pain? Are you seeing flashing lights?” he asked.
After Maureen answered no to pain and flashing lights, the doctor went on to describe all the possible problems she didn’t have. He ended by saying, “It’s probably a floater. We’ll take a look and get you sorted out.” He gave her shoulder a little squeeze and a pat, as though consoling her after delivering bad news.
Maureen sighed. She’d been going to this same optometrist for twenty years. Now they both had grey ribboning…
