The Five Ampoules

The back room of an optician's shop in Prague on an early spring afternoon, low sun through a tall window, on a white-tiled table a flat square cardboard box with its lid open, the lid lined with a yellow and white chain pattern, in its compartments five slim glass ampoules nine centimetres long filled with clear liquid, each wrapped in a plain white paper band, one ampoule broken open beside the box, a tiny clear soft contact lens on a fingertip of a hand in a white coat sleeve, a shallow glass dish of saline and a small steel ampoule file, a red and cream tram soft beyond the window.