Look at My Ear

"Now look at my ear." The optometrist tapped his left ear, and I focused there. He shined a bright light at my eye, then at the side, and froze. "No fuckin' way," he murmured. "What? What is it?" I tried not to move. "Is everything okay?"

"Just... wait. Don't move." He nearly tripped over his stool in his rush out the door. A moment later he returned with an older woman. "We found it, ma'am."

"You'll get a commendation for this," she said. "If you're not another eager beaver wasting my time." She sounded hard, like she had seen everything twice over. She settled onto the optometrist's stool. "Look at my ear, please."

I looked. With her shining her light and peering at god-knows-what, I tried not to move and said, "What is it? Is it something bad?"

"On the contrary, Ms Rezaei," she said. "It's what we've been looking for all these years."

"Looking for?"

"You didn't think we looked into people's eyes just to correct vision, did you? God, no. We've been searching for something."

"And I have it?"

"And you have it." Her smile was joyful, but not kind. "Now we just have to get it out."