"Girl in Window" by Carolyn Schlam
by Sofia Tantono
I first learnt about astigmatism through an Instagram post. It was a photo of a street lit at night, rays of light bursting from the lamps and traffic lights like blood spurting out of a gunshot wound. If this was how you saw lights, it claimed, then you had astigmatism.
What the hell was that? This was the thought prodding my mind as I Googled the condition, not knowing how else lights were supposed to look besides the way they did in the picture.
What the hell was that? This was the thought prodding my mind as I Googled the condition, not knowing how else lights were supposed to look besides the way they did in the picture.
I’m standing at my apartment’s open sliding door, looking over the view from my balcony and letting the night breeze caress me. I do this between bouts of frying things up in the kitchen and squabbling with my mother, which paints a domestic scene so stereotypically feminine that somewhere out there, a sexist has probably penned it in his novel. In my opinion, we might get along better if I moved out.
Not that she’d let me. Not right now.
The lights of this suburb’s houses, towers, and streets all look like the ones in that astigmatism post. Whether they come from the two Roman-pillared mansions, the minaret of that green mosque or the toll road, they all have long, mascaraed eye-lashes. Is this how Gatsby sees the green light, or does he not have eye issues besides long-sightedness?
I don’t see all lights like this. The lightbulbs above my head, for example, look normal. No shooting rays—just a soft, haloish glow around the searing brightness.
It’s when the lights are farther away that the party starts.
My gaze glazes over the panorama beyond. I realize I don’t mind the strobe-light filter. It turns those lights into the stars that I, an urbanite, can’t see in the night sky.
Not that she’d let me. Not right now.
The lights of this suburb’s houses, towers, and streets all look like the ones in that astigmatism post. Whether they come from the two Roman-pillared mansions, the minaret of that green mosque or the toll road, they all have long, mascaraed eye-lashes. Is this how Gatsby sees the green light, or does he not have eye issues besides long-sightedness?
I don’t see all lights like this. The lightbulbs above my head, for example, look normal. No shooting rays—just a soft, haloish glow around the searing brightness.
It’s when the lights are farther away that the party starts.
My gaze glazes over the panorama beyond. I realize I don’t mind the strobe-light filter. It turns those lights into the stars that I, an urbanite, can’t see in the night sky.
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Sofia Tantono (she/her) is a writer based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Her work has appeared in Yuwana Zine, unstamatic, INCUBATE, and others. Outside of writing, she was the curator for Yuwana Zine's fifth issue and is the fiction editor of Koening Zine. www.sofiatantono.wordpress.com | Instagram @sofias.writing
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