This was written for the Two for Tuesday Challenge #9. Prompt: Plain View (under 200 words).

The decline was so subtle that she couldn’t notice how much she strained to see until she tried on a new pair of glasses. All of a sudden, the world around her changed. Treetops which had mostly consisted of varying shades of green turned out to have sharply defined leaves, swaying gently in the wind. Buildings stopped stretching so high that their contours blurred, as if shrouded in mist; instead, they became finite objects lining the sky. Her ability to read signs clearly from more than a few feet away made her feel as though the small bubble she had been living in was visibly expanding, her world growing in front of her eyes. A stranger smiled as he walked past; she relished every line and stray hair as if they were the highlights of a work of art.

In a few days she would stop noticing these small instances of beauty. A few months later the world would regain its blurry veil, making her feel like an eternal observer, a woman spying on life with her worn crystal ball. But for now, she smiled back.

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Word count: 186