Curved Optic

A brass-rimmed magnifying glass lay flat across an open gridded ledger on the low table. I stepped from the chair rung onto the polished wood, tail locked horizontal to steady my approach. I lowered my snout above the convex lens. Immediate anomaly. The blue grid lines beneath the glass swelled fourfold, bowing outward into wide, warped corridors. I shifted closer. My own sickle claw, caught in the perimeter curvature, loomed twice its true scale. I nudged the rim with my lower jaw. The brass frame rocked with a dull scrape against the paper, sweeping the magnified matrix beneath my foot. Sector dimensions distorted. Visual grid logged.