I'm not quite sure how it all started, I just woke up one day and my edges were blurry. That's sounds weird. In different words, my outline wasn't sharp and crisp. I first noticed it in the mirror and put on my glasses in confusion. I thought my prescription had changed. One hand on my left eye and then I squinted because I'm nearly blind in my right. My outline was all fuzzy. I switched eyes to my left eye - my better eye - but that didn't help much. My clothes looked blurry around the edges and so did my glasses when I had them on. As soon as I put them down they looked crisp and solid.
I shrugged it off as too much caffeine or fatigue when I picked up a Coke and it seemed to blur too. Later while getting in bed, I tossed in a pill for vertigo to my daily medication slightly annoyed because my inner ear should have been fine.
A couple of days later the blurring seemed worse. I went out and got my prescription checked. My right eye had gotten better, I placed an order for the new lens and hoping it would fix it. I got more medication from a corner drugstore and grabbed a box of hair dye. Nothing cheers me up more than a day spent on myself.
I dyed my hair, put on a face mask and lotion. I even put on nail paint. I let myself sit longer in the bath tub trying not to focus on the blurriness but on the relaxation. The scented candles certainly helped. All my guilty pleasures that no one knew I enjoyed coupled with enough of some cheap wine to get buzzed had me forget. I called up my girl and relaxed. Everything was going great.
"I think I need to get my eyes checked," she said, her arms around me. A weird sinking feeling settled in my chest. I looked down at her.
"Why?" She looked at me half asleep, squinting slightly.
"I don't know, you seem kinda blurry." A knot formed in my stomach.
"Blurry?"
"Yeah, you seem blurry around the edges." She frowned a little. We were both silent and I watched her sleep. As soon as I was sure she wouldn't wake up and made my way to the mirror. I glared at it trying to figure it out. My eyes burned as I focused on one side and then the other trying to figure out why I was blurry. It had become more prominent, my left side was blurry.
I couldn't quite pinpoint where it started and where it ended but it was only on my left. If she could see it, then everyone could. I went back to pick up my phone trying not to wake her up. I opened the camera and watched the screen. I couldn't tell clearly. I turned on all the lights in the bathroom including the one right outside the door. The camera still couldn't pick up anything. I took a picture and zoomed in watching carefully for any change but either the camera couldn't capture it or I was making a big deal out of nothing.
I couldn't understand what exactly was bothering me about it so much but I tried to stop hyperventilating. Danny walked in then, her eyes concerned. She didn't ask anything as I tried to calm down. It was harder with her eyes on me but she placed her hands on my back making me realize that I was shirtless in bright lighting. That set off another set of insecurities as she hugged me.
A few days later my paranoia was at an all time high. The new prescription hadn't helped, my outline on my left side seemed to become more and more blurred. I got my professional camera and took pictures in multiple mirrors around the house. The camera screen didn't show any obvious blurring. I copied the images onto my PC and multiple screens showed me the pictures. Zoomed in and zoomed out, from different angles. I connected my phone and my laptop and eventually the TV. The phone and camera were both set up on tripods so I could easily shift from one screen to the next.
All the screens showed the same picture and then I watched. I compared it with the old picture from my phone and it was getting obvious that the blurring had gotten worse. It could be captured on camera now. I set up the camera again, opening the windows for sunlight and turning on all the lights. I set it up to take pictures on timer and then stood and waited for the tell-tale click. I am not sure how many pictures I took.
I took normal ones, I took ones of my holding random objects. Eventually I even stripped down to nothing. I took pictures of things lying near me. I took pictures from every possible angle I could think of and then sat down when the paranoia crept up to the point I was hyperventilating again. I cried until I was exhausted. I closed the curtains, turned off the lights and sat down in the middle of the screens. I played each picture slowly, zooming in on different screens, changing resolutions.
I pulled out a few pages to classify my paranoia and fear to make it more clinical. I wrote down all the reasons Being blurry was terrifying. It all linked to fading away. I didn't want to fade away, what actually happened was worse.
The blur looked like a picture where the camera shook a little giving you a blurred version of yourself. The effect looks good in pictures but no one wants to look like that all the time. I spent days on the same pictures adding new to the collection and just watching them for hours. I opened up an editing app trying to recreate the effect but came up blank. The blue wasn't that random, it had a spontaneous composition that only nature could create. The brushes and tools didn't get close.
I stayed up for days catching short naps in the same chair before my energy ran out. I slept there amongst the pictures and the screens. I woke up to Danny kissing me and I just let myself enjoy it. We sat in the bathtub with the light dimmed and she sang as she traced my leg. I had kept the candles on her side of the tub just letting myself be submerged in the darkness. A scented dark green bath bomb was simmering to nothing as she looked at me.
"What's wrong?" I just shook my head. "It's not nothing, love."
"I'm just having a bad day, or I don't know a bad week? Maybe even a bad life." I leaned back while she massaged my leg. I took a deep breath and looked at her. "It'll be fine, just an art block. Kishi keeps asking for the prints and I haven't really been trying." She mutters reassuring things with kisses but I don't focus on that. I'm waiting for her to leave so I can take more pictures. Maybe a video.
It takes hours before she's gone, I feel a twinge of anger at myself at the relief I feel when I'm alone but I push it away. Locking the doors, turning on all the lights is quick. I grab a snack and let the camera roll. I take a few short clips and a lot of pictures. Then starts the long grueling process of analysing them. The pictures came first, they were mostly recreations of the ones from about a week ago. I put them side by side and zoomed until each pixel was visible. The blurring had progressed. I got up and walked out of the apartment. The mart I usually went to was closed and I stood there in confusion. I had left my phone in the room and annoyance filled me as I looked around trying to figure out why it was closed. There was a 24/7 convenience store about ten minutes away, I looked at the clock and cursed. It was almost 5 AM.
I grabbed some cheap beer and eyed the cigarettes for a long time before buying a pack. I had quit but the craving hit me when I was distressed. The guy looked at me weirdly as he ringed up my purchases. I just looked away trying not to focus on it too much. When I was leaving I heard him talking to someone else behind the counter.
"Dude, I'm really fucking stoned," he said, louder than required. "I could barely see that guy without my eyesight blurring." I heard two guys snickering as I turned around. The first one leaning heavily on the counter and the other one trying and failing to pull himself up. I rushed back home, two cigarettes already finished by the time I reached the door. I locked it so no one could come in, not even Danny. I took more pictures and sat down to analyse the videos. I watched them frame by frame and then something became clear. The blurred edges weren't just a blur.
It was me, a second me that flickered in and out of life slightly to my left. It was faster than the camera eye could capture but at 60 frames per second it managed to capture some of the flickering. I slowed it down to 4 frames per second and it was suddenly a lot more obvious that my face was appearing and disappearing at a very rapid rate. With the overlapping however, I couldn't tell much more than that.
Danny knocked at my door for over an hour and then just sat down outside it. She waited for quiet some time but I didn't bother responding. I just watched the slowed down video over and over. Eventually she slipped a note under the door and then left. I didn't pick it up. I turned on some music and opened the beer.
What does all of this mean? Why was I leaving an after image when I walked or moved around?
I turned to the internet and found nothing. I found tutorials to generate this effect on video or photo editing software but nothing about it happening without software. I read up on every bit of information I could find but admittedly there wasn't a lot. I even called a doctor asking if it was a medical condition. She got pretty annoyed and hung up after telling me to fuck off. I called a therapist and explained but he wasn't willing to talk without me paying. After an online bank transfer he just talked about body dysphoria or schizophrenia trying to get me to fit the textbook symptoms.
I called up a professor in a local university who had a PhD in ocular sciences and asked him whether it was possible for me to have such a reflection. He talked about reflection a lot before concluding that no, it couldn't be done with a normal mirror. I started dropping posts in all sorts of forums and sending emails to engineers whose numbers I couldn't find.
I started with typical ask forums and eventually I started getting banned on those. My emails didn't get any responses, the calling list I was making seems endless but no one has answers. They usually tell me to fuck off. The forum posts have mostly been ignored. The blurring has gotten worse. I take videos every six hours to observe them frame by frame.
It got worse every single day and I started reaching out to even more obscure websites and forums. Danny still comes by, she calls me and texts me. She leaves voice notes where she starts crying but I can't face her.
Today however has been the worst, that's why I'm posting here. I need help. If you know what's going on with me please help, I can't watch those videos anymore with myself and it. I can't stop watching the videos either. It's face is getting more visible with each video. Even if I can't hear it, I am sure of what it's doing.
It's screaming out of fear.
Submitted June 04, 2019 at 06:23AM by s-monty http://bit.ly/2Z6f4yW
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