A Lens on the Alley

The midday glare began searing the wet cobblestones beneath my post, rendering watch duty a squinting contest. Stepping down from the wooden peg shelf, my boot clipped a glass marble half-tucked into the mud beside the timber piling. I pried it loose with the heel of my boot, wiping off the grit against the damp cardboard sleeve in the alcove. I nestled the clear glass sphere directly onto the creased cinema ticket ledge I had wedged into the wood. Looking through the curved crystal inverted the alleyway entirely—a tiny, upside-down silhouette of the delivery gate, framed crisp and silent. Cheap optics, but it saves my eyes from the afternoon sun.