clarity. It’s no longer hard to control your focus with the
glasses on, so you decide juSt to wear them all day. You
call in sick to work, you might not even need to go back.
For now, you'll hold offon quitting — after all, is possible
this is some sort of hallucination, a trick of the mind.

So you walk down to the corner Store, wearing both
pairs of glasses, and pass that deteStable volunteer again.

Why doesn’t he get a real job and quit waSting his time?
You walk into the convenience Store, pretend to rifle
through the magazines, and pick one up without looking
atit very much it’s not really part of your plan. When
you get to the regiSter, you realize it’s a woodworking
magazine. You Stare at the counter through the glass
that covers the in$iant scratch and win lotto tickets. You
Stare deeply at them, seemingly mesmerized to the poor
cashier who waits. The numbers and letters come to the
surface and you Study them carefully. There’s the one.
You really lucked out. One ticket with a winning prize
of fifty thousand dollars. Your mind Starts to wander,
trying to calculate the odds of that ticket being at the
first convenience Store you try, but you dismiss the calcu-
lations for now.

“T'll take a scratch ticket too, please.” You barely look
up. The cashier muSt be feeling awkward but she complies
and pulls out the way. “Can I pick whichever one I want?”

You fleetingly glance at her face long enough to see her
nod, her face betraying her bewilderment. You pick out
the winning ticket, pay for it and the magazine.

You can’t believe your luck. Imagine how foolish
you were to ignore these glasses for so long, although it’s
probably a blessing really. If you had these as your eleven
year old self, you would probably have no idea how to use
them properly and probably would have wanted to help
people and waste the gift. Of course, someone would
have probably found out before you matured enough to
know the true value of this power.

Turning out the light, you remove your glasses for
the night. The room is pitch black. You turn to sleep.
Your night is plagued with Stranger dreams than the
night before. Every time you wake up in the blinding
darkness, you feel the glasses on your bedside and remind
yourself that everything is fine. Finally the third time
you wake up, you decide to check the alarm. When you
look over to your nightStand, you can’t locate the clock.

“Damn!” There muSt have been a power outage. You
grope around in the dark for the lamp switch and flick
iton then again one more time. Nothing. Nothing

but pitch blackness. Your heart flutters, and your mouth
goes dry. You are blind. Frantically you reach out for the

x-ray glasses but hesitate as you bring them to your face.
Could this be the reason for your sudden loss of vision?
But you have no choice at this point. You put the glasses
on and blink hard from the bright light of the midday sun.

What a terrible trick. How can this be? It’s afternoon
now, so you make toaSt and eggs and call in sick again
to work. They might Start to wonder about how sick you
really are because you rarely take days off. You can’t go
to work with sunglasses on every day; you have to figure
this out. You walk out with the sunglasses on and wander
the neighbourhood, thinking about your situation. You
have a niggling feeling that you know what you have to
do but push the thought back in your mind. You could
juSt continue wearing the glasses everyday quit your
job how many winning scratch cards could you cash
in before the lottery corporation noticed? Maybe if you
moved around to different provinces you could laSt a
while, but what about your family? It all juSt seems a
little more underhanded than you’re comfortable with.
Then a chilling thought creeps into your mind. How long
can these glasses laSt? How long will they even work for?
The frames are made of flimsy cardboard with barely a
plaStic coating on them. You Start to notice the tension
in your lungs and cheS$i building and your SLomach doing
flips. It Starts to rain; that niggling thought comes back
Stronger. You walk past that same volunteer and look
at him with your head to the side. Your diStress disarms
your usual disdain and makes you curious to his moti-
vations. Does he have a sick child? Is this his only way
of feeling less a failure for not being able to afford the
treatment that his son or daughter desperately needs?
You Stare down at his collection pot, taking a revealing
look inside a couple five dollar bills, toonies, loonies, a
gum wrapper you Stop yourself from totaling it up in
your head. You look at the man, you can see inside his
wallet, a ten dollar bill, small change, no credit card — it’s
all too depressing. You reach into the breaSt pocket of
your jacket. Feeling around, you run your fingers over
the smooth texture of the unscratched ticket and pause
before removing it and walk back to the man. Wordlessly,
you hand it over to him and he juSt Stares at you with
bewilderment. As you walk away, you dart your eyes
around the Street, trying to make any secret thing come
into focus. You realize that the glasses no longer hold
any power, they’ve turned back into the useless gimmicky
toy you always knew they were. You lean againSt the
doorway of your apartment and remove them. Raising
your hand in front of your face, you Strain to focus, and
realize that your normal sight has returned.