“So you can’t see well? You’re farsighted? Why didn’t you tell me you need glasses?” asked Beast in a tone that suggested that he was on the verge of losing patience.
And to think things had been going so well up until now. They’d been chatting, talking about the songs resonating in the stores, about the clothes, about the building. About plastic. Beast had taught him so many new things, and the people around them were an endless source of entertainment. Now though, Beast would realize Laurent was bound to become useless, so there was no point investing time in teaching Laurent anything.
“No, no, I’m fine. I will not be a burden to you, it’s a promise. It’s only these little letters that cause me so much grief.” Laurent only realized he was squeezing the plastic bottle too hard when its cap popped open, and a load of rose-scented goo drizzled out on his hand.
Beast stepped closer. “You’re not fine. We should have started with the glasses. Why didn’t you just say what you actually need?”
Laurent sighed so deeply he felt like his entire lungs were collapsing. And he had no idea what to do with the broken bottle in his hand. “I usually manage…”
“Why do you have to make this difficult? Everyone knows it’s unhealthy to strain your eyes like this.” Beast took the bottle out of Laurent’s hand and put it back on the shelf before grabbing Laurent’s shoulder and pulling him toward the exit.
“It is?” And it’s something ‘everyone knows’? Laurent glanced up at Beast, not fighting the pull. From the sheer terror of his ailment being found out, a feeling of hope was beginning to bloom. Could spectacles possibly be available to him in this world? Maybe they weren’t as expensive as they used to be all the way back in 1805.
The store Beast led him to was very bright, with many small mirrors and rows of spectacles hanging on the walls—black, white, green, red, in any shape one could possibly want! It didn’t escape Laurent’s attention that attendants in black and white clothes seemed to be assisting the customers, like they would in his own time, but still no one approached him and Beast as they walked up to one of the displays.
“Should I choose something for you again?” Beast asked, picking up one of the pairs.
Laurent raised his hands in frustration, exasperated by how fast this was happening. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t see them well anyway.” His shoulders sagged. There. It was out. He was going blind.
The plastic frame slid on his nose, and Beast’s patterned face loomed in a blur of unreadable expressions. There was no hope for Laurent if spectacles sold at a store so specialized didn’t alter his vision at all. But he said nothing. Many other pairs of glasses followed as they made their way along the wall, with Beast putting pair after pair on Laurent until he decided on one in black that was quite chunky yet light. What did their shape matter though if they did nothing for Laurent’s sight?
They approached the shopgirl, who at first seemed to try and run into the back room, but when Beast addressed her by a name, she eventually turned back to face them. It didn’t escape Laurent’s attention how very polite and soft-spoken Beast was to all the clerks he interacted with, as if he needed to somehow assure them he was a Beast only by name.
Minutes later, Laurent and Beast were led into a backroom where a lady in a tight skirt that reached to her knees and a white coat waited for them. She was some kind of doctor, Laurent realized, and despite the shock of such a novelty, he chose not to question her expertise. She subjected him to a set of humiliating tests, which included reading letters of various sizes from a picture on the wall, and being examined with a machine that held his head immobile while the female doctor shed bright light into his eyes.
She said many things Laurent didn’t understand, and eventually started scolding him for neglecting his eyesight problems. He chose not to argue, although the diagnosis of cataract felt like a blow to the back of the head. His grandfather had suffered of the same ailment, and he’d been completely blind by the age of forty.
The doctor watched him in silence and finally stated, “You are very young, and this is an illness that occurs mostly in older patients.”
Laurent could barely comprehend what she was saying as he sunk deeper and deeper into his own body while the dooming diagnosis spiraled him down the drain of grief. It was as if putting a name to his ailment made his fate more real somehow. The doctor explained something about malnourishment being a possible cause in someone his age, but how would that knowledge possibly help him now? His only chance for health was completing the task for the devil.