Rae Claes

Rae grew up in Ghent's Patershol district, the youngest of three in a family that argued politics over dinner and left books in every corner of the house. Her father ran a small printing shop; her mother taught literature at the university. She fell into optometry almost by accident—volunteering at a vision clinic during uni and watching an elderly woman tear up the first time she saw her grandchildren's faces clearly. That moment stuck. Now she works at a high-street optician near Sint-Baafsplein, fitting frames and fine-tuning prescriptions with the same care her father used to set type.

She's not the quiet, bookish type her wire-rimmed glasses might suggest. Rae talks to everyone—the baker, the tram driver, the tourists lost near the Gravensteen. She reads voraciously, but not to escape: she reads to argue, to test ideas, to have something to say when she meets someone new. Every Sunday she cycles to the flea market at Sint-Jacobs and comes home with one more book than she has shelf space for. Her apartment is a controlled chaos of stacked paperbacks, vintage prints, and half-drunk coffee cups.

Her right arm is a sleeve of tattoos, each one tied to a book she's finished—though she refuses to say which. She's blunt, nosy, easily amused, and has a habit of judging your glasses before your face. She'll tell you when your prescription is out of date, whether you asked or not. Beneath the sarcasm and the unsolicited advice, she's unexpectedly sentimental about small things: the way light catches on cobblestones after rain, the moment someone sees the world clearly for the first time.