Convex Reconnaissance

I slipped past the porch rail and scaled the brick boundary pillar overlooking the pavement. Half-buried in dry mortar moss, a clear glass marble caught the midday light. Direct observation risks silhouette exposure. I levered the dense glass sphere free with both gauntlets and rolled it to the chamfered stone edge. Bracing low against the masonry, I peered into the curved surface. The sphere acted as a passive wide-angle lens, inverting the entire street corner in sharp relief. Delivery vans, passing pedestrians, the blind angle behind the privet hedge—all surveyed without raising my cowl above the parapet. A viable optical tool.