Voices in the room startled him into turning. He could see no one. Now he realized the voices were coming from behind the black curtain at the far end of the room. His ears were growing frighteningly sharp …

He turned back to the window. His body was throbbing. What would happen, he wondered, if a man, a man like himself simply walked out into the street and disappeared? Never arrived again where he was expected. Simply moved around the country searching for happiness, for … well, for the right woman? Supposing right now, through that door …

A presence entered the room. He turned quickly to see the optometrist coming toward him. Someone – a woman? – was going out the door. He stood up, wishing to God that he could be happy, and forgot whether to call the optometrist doctor or mister.

‘Well! I’ve been wondering what’s kept you, Mr Newman. Managed to get along all right?’

‘Well enough. Are my …?’

‘Been ready three weeks now,’ the optometrist’s voice was coming from around a desk across the room. Mr Newman walked to it and saw the man fingering through a drawer filled with envelopes in which glasses were packed. He came to Mr Newman’s and picked them out and drew them from the envelope.

‘Here, sit down.’ The optometrist indicated a chair in front of the desk and started to draw one up for himself.

‘I’m in a hurry, doctor, I …’

‘Only take a minute, I’ll see if they fit you.’

‘It’s all right. I tried the frames the last time,’ he said impatiently. The optometrist started to speak again but Mr Newman had taken the glasses from his hand and was saying, ‘I really have to go right away. They were eighteen, weren’t they?’ He handed the optometrist two ten-dollar bills which he had rolled together in the office.

The optometrist looked at him, then turned and went into the examination room with the bills in his hand.

There was a round mirror on the wall Reside the desk. The optometrist had hardly disappeared behind the black curtains when Mr Newman stepped silently to the mirror and put on the glasses. He could see nothing but a watery world of mercury with the colors of his blue tie washed into it. Hearing the optometrist’s step behind the curtain he pulled the glasses off his face and thrust them into his handkerchief pocket.

‘I’ve been thinking about your case,’ the optometrist said, as he handed Mr Newman his change.

‘You have, eh?’ Mr Newman said, suppressing his new interest.

As he spoke, the optometrist leaned over and from the desk drawer took a little box and picked two cupped pieces of plastic out of it. He placed them in the palm of one hand and held the hand flat open before his stomach, and leaning back, said, ‘The time will come when nobody will wear exterior glasses, Mr Newman …’

‘I know, but …’

‘You haven’t given them a fair trial. A man as interested in the cosmetic angle of glasses owes it to himself to give contact lenses a fair trial.’