A dog walk into another dimension.

The dog ran ahead his tail waving importantly.  He always had to be in front as if his dignity depended on it.  I thought I was taking him for a walk but in reality it was the other way round.  Even though it was still early, the heat hit you like a brick wall . So I avoided the open common and headed for the leafy shade.  We followed the well worn path along the chalk stream, overshadowed by hawthorns that hid it from the sun.

 I stopped on the little bridge were a colony of harts tongue ferns flourished in the damp shade.  They only grew above a little spring that ran into the stream.  If you watched carefully you could see a trickle running down the chalky bank creating little eddies that cut through the swift flowing water. From the vantage point on the bridge, occasionally, if you’re lucky you might get a glimpse of a kingfisher, a mere blue streak flashing above the ripples, speeding through the dim tunnel.

I stood in an arbour of thorn and elder and removed my glasses to rub them clean. My eyes relaxed as I gazed around me into the leafy gloom. I could not see much at all.  Everything was just an indistinct blur of light and shade.

Then something magical happened.  As I kept looking, my eyes adjusted to the panorama around me.  Dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy transformed into translucent balls, like three dimensional stars radiating light in all directions.  Each ball had it own distinct colour, some bright green as light filtered through the tender new leaves, pink, blue of the sky and others yellow or translucent like crystal.  Form had lost all solidity and existed only as the essence of light. 

Each ball was perfectly distinct yet transparent, radiating coloured rays from a central core.  Overlapping each other they gave a three dimensional quality to the picture, rather like frogs spawn in a pond.

I gawped in wonder too absorbed in the spectacle to go any further. Christmas trees and baubles came to mind, though this was way beyond anything I could have imagined.  Dragging my eyes away from the canopy I looked into the murk of the glade. Here the quality of light was much softer, a gentle glow that picked out certain features in a very different way. 

Branches and twigs beside the path, mere shadows of themselves, merged into a shimmering translucent membrane that quivered like living water.  Dim pink light hit the slender stalks of the dried out cow parsley and transformed them into thick brush strokes, a perfect calligraphy.    Bigger branches loomed out of the gloom, garlands of long rounded oblongs, the colour of sienna earth, jewels of light hanging in space all the more luminous against the  dark velvet shadows.   The dog had sat down and waited patiently for me to move.  He turned towards me and I saw red light flash from his jaws in stark contrast to the shimmering black void of his coat. 

Being short sighted has its advantages after all.  What might appear to be a defect can also be a window to another dimension.  So all you short sighted people, try taking off your glasses and relax.  You may well be very surprised by what you’ll see.