Hero Glasses
Faking Nearsightedness

There were twenty-eight children in my third-grade class, roughly half of them boys and the smoother half, obviously, girls. No cross-genders in rural Sweden at that time.

All but two of those twenty-eight, well, twenty-seven not counting me, were taller than I was. Only two of the boys, Per and Christer, were my height—we checked several times and found each time that we were precisely as tall (or as short, rather).

Even the shortest girl was taller, which no matter how you dress it up is embarrassing, really. Very.

My mother, and on occasion my grandmother, kept telling me that I would shoot up like a bamboo (and God knows I know they can shoot—but that’s another story) once I reached my teens and not to worry about anything. Just a late bloomer, that’s all—and by a motherly logic I have yet to crack, I was told (and more than once) that growing taller later in life (say in your teens) made for higher intelligence. I lapped that up, of course. Nice lie, nice crutch. Thanks, Mom.

As it happened, by the time I left home at sixteen I was just as tall as the next guy, so kudos to Mom and Grandma. Small price to pay for such easily acquired superior intelligence.

But back to third grade: Although quite outgoing and gregarious, not to mention very hard to shut up—I guess loquacious or garrulous would fit as words—I still was a timid soul. By that I mean: I had never been in a fistfight and could not even imagine ever being in one. This, by the way, holds true to this very day (and I’m seventy-five now, and I still have never been in a fistfight—am I a deficient human?).

Anyway. Christer was pretty timid as well—though he was an awesome cross-country skier, fast and with ridiculous endurance, never seemed to tire. He won pretty much every ski race he competed in, and we raced a lot in winter; lots of snow about, not much else to do apparently—well, hockey, but that’s another story.

Per, on the other hand, was the very opposite of timid.

He was made of steel. Short-statured steel.

I found it hard at the time to account for this. Standing side by side there was no telling (say, in our class photos) that he was the pusher-over while I was the pushee-over. Later I came to learn that he was put to work on his father’s farm shortly after he learned how to walk and much of the labor on a farm does build muscle and endurance and a body of steel.

So that finally explained things.

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During those third-class days, I often wished that I could be Per; or at least endowed with Per’s amazing musculature and courage and his “I’m not taking any shit from anyone” outlook on life.

I brought my troubles to my troll-mother Minta’s door once or twice but she was not much help; her advice could be summarized as “Get over it.” Though this particular “it” was something I had a hard time getting over.

Then one day in class, the solution sort of walked in and sat down next to me. I was watching Per up by the blackboard, he was writing something. Spelling something out, chalky letter by chalky letter. Chalk in his right hand, tongue between teeth, while his left hand kept pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose from where they (replicating Sisyphus’ boulder) would immediately slide down to then be pushed up again, ad infinitum.

Glasses!

Per wore glasses.

Yes, granted, I would not acquire Per’s body, but I sure as anything could become at least partly Per if I, too, wore glasses. Brilliant.

Here’s the thing though. In third grade, I had perfect vision. But why would I let such a bagatelle stand in the way of becoming partly Per?

I too could be courageous, could be a pusher-over. So I lied. Told my mom (poor Lisbeth), that I had trouble seeing what was written on the blackboard at school and I definitely needed glasses.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

I don’t know how she took my word for that since as a rule she would doubt most things coming out of my mouth, but took my word she did and a week later we had an appointment with the eye doctor who examined and tested and tried to figure out what kind of prescription I’d need. And, looking back, I’m surprised that he settled on a prescription at all for I kept lying, saying I could not see what I in fact I did see, clear as day.

In the end, the doctor settled for what this sham examination called for: a ridiculously improper prescription. But I would get my glasses.

Per problem solved.

Could hardly wait.

A week later, we picked them up. Frames pretty much like Per’s (I had insisted, of course). I tried them, and, oh, Jesus, I could hardly see anything. The prescription was for farsightedness, so the lenses were of the convex, magnifying persuasion, blurring everything in sight (pun intended).

But who cares? I had glasses, and I wore them to school the following day, feeling my way gingerly about, not seeing much of anything on the blackboard. I had to take them off to make out what the teacher had written and then asked me to read.

“I didn’t know you needed glasses,” said Ingrid, our teacher.

I had no answer to that. Just nodded.

A little later, “If you need glasses,” she wondered, “why do you keep taking them off?”

No answer to that either.

By now I nursed the growing feeling that I had made one of the stupidest mistakes ever, for not only did I not become Per, I didn’t even vaguely feel like Per, on top of which I now could not see very well.

Looking back at this minor insanity from my seventy-five years old vantage point, I don’t remember how long I forced myself to wear the darn things in public (around my parents, et al.) but I also know that a couple of months later I had stashed them in the back of my bureau drawer, never to be worn again.

Mom, much to her credit, never brought my non-wearing of these glasses up. God knows what she thought.

Troll-mother Minta could not keep from laughing—which, of course, was no more than what I deserved.

Two years later, as it happened, I did need glasses—this time I got the correct prescription. I still need them.

Every now and then I wonder if I screwed up my eyes by wearing the wrong prescription for a month or so, but then I recall that I didn’t actually wear them that much, not enough—I think—to do lasting damage.

Or perhaps just enough.

One of my life’s mysteries, that.

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