The Lanyard by Jake Carter-Thomas

a slight cottony slip as he ran at it, nothing in comparison to crossing the stream. The pull on his arm lessened and the girl returned close to his right side. He could almost see her in his peripheral vision, he could hear her breath, exalted, ecstatic, deep. He could feel it, full of her taste.
    They got to the top of the next slope and she pulled on his arm to stop. She was out of breath. She let go and put her hands on her knees, bending over to try and scoop air with her tongue like a cat at water. He was out of breath too. But not in the same way, more like a dog than a cat, his tongue tasting the breeze, ears up, giddy thoughts in his head.
    Should he have kept going, pulling her along? Maybe. What if they went faster and faster and faster? Hadn't he learned they would begin to lift from the earth, become birds, become planes, the air lifting them over the treetops, become little dots of felt until the stream they had crossed wound around as it widened, a vein in the arm of the world. He thought of the loop of string through the small hole in the hilt of his pocket knife that he sometimes attached to his wrist. He saw in the mirror of his mind the girl in place of that knife, tethered to him as they flew, hands become like knotted thread. And he could see that string shadowed beneath them, only the shadow was not black like their cut-out silhouettes. The shadow was white. A brilliant white. Bright like the inside of a lightbulb, hurting his eyes until he had to open them.
    "Thanks," she said.
    "It's ok."
    "Good. Sorry about the hand thing."
    "Huh?"
    "Not taking your right hand."
    "Oh."
    "Yeah, I just can't see so good out of this side."
    "You can't?"
    "Actually, I can't see at all."
    She pointed up to her face but he couldn't see any difference. Not until he forced himself to look at her left eye and saw that the colour was more yellow, the texture clouded, and he wondered for a moment if she had seen it too, that ocean of blue light in the sky... Ten seconds or so, that's all it took. Or was it something else?
    He asked her what happened. She said, "Pass." Then, "My pa told me I caught something when I was young."
    "I'm sorry," he said.
    "It's 'k. I don't mind talking about it."
    "What's it like?"
    "What's what?"
    "To not see out of one side."
    "Oh -- not so bad, close your left eye and try."
    He turned away and did it, casting his view all around the trees in a circle, all the way back to the rise beneath the area where they had met, and down again the other side, the trees, the grass made of leaves, the ever-swirling wind.
    "It's kind of the same," he said.
    "Yeah, it is."
    "I just see a lot of my nose," he turned around. "A bit like being in a cave, looking out. You know?"
    "Right. Funny thing is, if you kept it up you'd get used to it. The nose, I mean. I don't even see it anymore, only if I try and look that way. You know, if someone doesn't listen to my instructions, and insists on wandering into my blind spot."
    "I won't."
    She laughed. "I didn't mean you."
    "Right."
    "Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sell it as a flawless way of being, or anything. I guess with anything like that it's never as bad as you think."
    "Yeah... I once sprained my ankle and thought it was the end of the world. But it wasn't so bad. It got better."
    "This won't though."
    "I didn't mean like--"
    "I'm just messing with you."
    "Oh."
    "You're very kinda serious, aren't you?" She pretended to slap him on the shoulder but missed. "Dang... Depth perception."
    He wasn't sure if this was deliberate or not. He stepped back regardless, he recoiled, as if she had hit him. She laughed.
    "Uh... ok?" he said.
    "No. I could totally sock you one, if I wanted. But I won't."
    "That's good, I guess."
    "I mean it's not that hard to figure out what is close to you and what isn't, you know, once you get used to it, and if you can't, well I guess you deserve to walk into things."
    "I guess you do."
    "So go on, close yours again and try and get me." She