Patches of dimness: Fantasy

Small, dim objects in the dark can't be seen unless you're not looking directly at them. That's just science, man. Most of us have forgotten how to do that, because we live in towns and cities where there are always streetlights and flashlights and everything else to let you see whatever you want. A lot of the rural people remember, though there's still the tall barn light on a pole that brightens the yard, plus they've got lanterns and now electric lights in all their barns and sheds. Still. They're closer to remembering than most of the rest of us. Me, I'm a farm kid, or at least I was for a few years, thanks to the foster parents who lived out on a farm and were--still are--maybe the most decent human beings I ever knew. So I got into the usual sneaking-out-of-the-farmhouse scrapes, since being in a good situation wasn't enough to calm me down a hundred percent. So I know where the small dim objects are in the dark and how to see them. This is a lot like that. It takes the same knack, and that's a knack that most city-dwellers don't have. I was--gosh, I don't even remember what I was doing when I first noticed them, but I figured out quick enough that if I looked straight at them I didn't see a thing. I wonder how many optometrists got a boom in their business about the same time that the Blots showed up? Yeah, I call them the Blots. "The Shadows" just sounds way too pretentious and heavy and ominous (It omins!).


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lugdunum/9232619353/ - a pretty photo with patches of light -> googling patches of light -> an explanation of how the fovea centralis has no rods and thus you can't see things directly, http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/macula.html
Story potential: Low
Notes: Eh. Noting new.