Glasses by William Matheson
The first thing a lot of men notice about a woman is her breasts. I, however, am different. Three years ago I broke my neck when I fell off the balcony of a local rooftop bar while trying to get the attention of a woman on the street that I went to high school with – you know, one of those people who you aren't friends with, but you know their name? Anyway, I can't say that I got any further into the focus of her starlit eyes behind her glasses (well, at least I think they were starlit - I mean, I never was able to get a good look) because as it turned out she didn't even look up when I yelled “Hi, Alice! … Alice? … Is your name Alice Monroooooaauuuuugggghhhhhh-!!!” It's like her mind was totally somewhere else! What was she doing, writing a book?
I ended up in the hospital for a bit and much later I was walking around campus again and it was the springtime and the girls weren't wearing jackets anymore and there were a lot of pretty breasts around, but it hurt my neck to look down at them. It made making friends difficult because every time a girl would walk by, I would instinctively look at their breasts and a jolt of pain would hit me, like this: “Ah, fuck!” and with that happening sixty times a day I think everybody started to think I was strange.
In desperation, I went back to the same rooftop bar to see if I could find someone who agreed with me on the important point that I deserved them. Plus I had that neck brace they always give you when you break your neck so that you can look like an athlete who broke his neck doing something heroic like blocking a punt then having thirty guys jump on top of you. When I had finished my sixth draught, I peeked over the balcony and there was Alice Monroe again! I rushed down to meet her, this time using the stairs. On my way down, though, I crashed into a girl and knocked her glasses off. I bent down to pick them up for her and yelped in agony when I remembered that my neck was broken. I noticed that her glasses were very sharp and alluring as I returned them to her face, and after she slapped me in the cheek for touching her face and we all moved on with our lives, I decided that when I look at a woman, I will notice her glasses.