On all the walls are posters showing hearing aids

like pink sugar mice.

I sit and wait.

A girl takes me into a darkened room

and places my chin and forehead in

a kind of scold’s bridle.

A puff of air into each eye.

Puff! Puff! It makes me jump!

We laugh.

Funny spots dance before my eyes

things flash and letters blur.

It’s done.

No problems, it’s all fine.

And so I sit and wait again to pay.

And then I see it.

In the corner of the waiting room

a massive ostrich is looking down at me.

Dark eyes with exotic curling lashes

a beak wide as a sandwich

twisty necked, big bodied

scaly legged and

massive Jurassic toes.

It does a little dance and winks at me.

Why does no one else see?

We are in an opticians after all!