My eyes seem to have gotten worse in recent years - it was time to have them examined.
The ophthalmologist's medical assistant led me to Room 101, the examination room, where she took my history.
"Oh, yes," she said, "a lot of our patients are complaining about the same things you are! Everything seems slightly cockeyed and disconnected! Everybody's feeling disoriented!"
The medical assistant scanned my medical history on the computer screen. "Hmm, hmm, hmm," she muttered to herself. "Are you taking any drugs or medications? No? Would you like to? We have a half-price special on drugs today: legal, recreational and street; injectable, smokeable and ingestible. If you'd like, we have some free sample drugs that you can try, along with Naxalon nasal spray bottles in case, you know, you overdose a little. Hmm?"
I declined her offer.
The medical assistant continued reviewing my chart. "I see that your car needs an oil change, your bank account is running low, you bought and read several paper books... which is almost aberrant behavior these days, aha ha ha ha... you recently purchased a bottle of port wine at the liquor store, you failed to vote for the right candidates in the last several elections and -- oh my -- you read several Russian and Chinese websites last night for exactly 13.6 minutes. Hmm, hmm, hmm... and who's this pretty young lady you were ogling on the Web...?"
"What's all that doing in my record?" I wondered.
But before I could express my bewilderment, the medical assistant had blown several puffs of smoke into my eyes, noted that my pressures were passably good and handed me off to the doctor.
"I'm Dr. Wasserboarder," said Dr. Wasserboarder as he dimmed the room lights. He clamped leather restraints on my arms and legs and thrust a large test machine onto the bridge of my nose and over my face. "Now, tell me what's the lowest line of letters that you can read on the following chart?"
I squinted at the chart. "I don't know," I said. "It's hard for me to read anything on this chart. They're all gibberish!"
"Very interesting," said Dr. Wasserboarder as he added several notes to my medical file. Now look at this next chart and read the lowest line you can.
"Top to bottom, it's all unintelligible, it's all still garbage," I confessed.
The doctor typed some additional notes into my file.
"Alright," said Dr. Wasserboarder, "let's try a different test. Which one of the following two images seems better to you, Number 1... or Number 2. Number 1.......... or Number 2?"
I tried my hardest, but neither picture looked any good.
"C'mon man," I told the eye doctor. "Picture Number 1 seems weirdly unhinged and very crooked. And Picture Number 2 seems to occupy the whole field of view cutting out all perspective and peripheral vision."
"How about Picture 3 and 4?" asked Dr. Wasserboarder. "Picture 3... or 4?"
"No improvement," I said. "Number 3 seems to be, somehow, misaligned and off-kilter. And Number 4 is so fuzzy and unfocused like there's really nothing there. Can I have some other choices?"
"No, you have the freedom to choose, but only from the choices I give you," said Dr. Wasserboarder as he texted a brief message to the Department of Homeland Security. "Now, look at this next chart. Tell me, how many genders do you see?"
"Genders? Two, I guess."
"No," said Dr. Wasserboarder, "there are actually 97 genders, at least as of this morning's tabulation. Possibly more by tonight." He typed a few more notes into my medical record. "And I noticed," said Dr. Wasserboarder, "that you didn't even ask them what pronouns they preferred."
"Ask who? The stick figures? They're just cartoons! They don't have pronouns!"
"Ah," said Dr. Wasserboarder. "Even stick figures have feelings. You should always ask what pronouns folks prefer, even if they are cartoons. It could be, you know, that there is a cultural problem with your eyesight, not a medical problem. It could be there is nothing wrong with your eyes, just something wrong with your perception."
He rotated several lenses on the examination machine.
"Let's try a few other tests," said Dr. Wasserboarder. "What's the number of Russian and Chinese secret agents hiding in this picture?"
I stared at the picture. "I don't see a number or anything in this picture. Just a bunch of red and pink and green dots. I'm color-blind, you know."
Dr. Wasserboarder looked at me over the top of his half-rim granny glasses. "It is mandatory to see colors even if you are color-blind!" He made a few more entries in my chart and sent another text message to Homeland Security.
"One more test," the doctor said. "How many people are there in this picture, what is their ethnicity and with what race do they identify?"
"What?!? Who knows and who cares about superficial appearances? I mean, we're all just a mishmash since the beginning of the Anthropocene. We're all just a bunch of mixed up genes. Genes are for mixing and that's what they've done. Everyone's a mutt. If anything, we can identify with blue-green cyanobacteria, since that's where it all started." I stared hard at Dr. Wasserboarder who stared hard back at me.
"Now lean back while I put some drops in and dilate your pupils," said Dr. Wasserboarder. The doctor tightened my arm restraints and shined several extremely hot, bright lights into my eyes.
"Are you now or have you ever been a subversive, a communist, a malcontent or have you ever voted for a disapproved political candidate?
"Do you believe in Science?
"Do you speak and understand more than one language?
"When is the last time you pledged allegiance to the flag of Ukraine?
"Have you cursed Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping today?
"Have you had your daily Covid 19 booster shot?
"What is the last comic book Hollywood movie you watched?
"Are you deep in debt? And if not, why not?"
I squirmed to get my eyes away from the bright lights. "Say, what kind of a doctor did you say you were, anyway?" I asked.
"A I doctor," said Dr. Wasserboarder as he rapidly made more entries into my electronic file.
"An eye doctor?"
"No. A I doctor. I am an artificially intelligent DPT. A Degenerative Pre-trained Transformer doctor-bot. Your quarter hour is up now. Please pay your deductible on the way out. I am prescribing the following for you: rose-colored alternative reality glasses and a daily dose of hallucinogens. I also am referring you for a psychological examination, cultural readjustment therapy, and a fitting for a cortical implant. None of these will actually let you see more clearly, but afterwards you will feel more contented and socially well-adjusted.”
I burst my arm restraints and ran out of the eye examination room. There were hundreds of seemingly contented patients in the smoke-filled waiting room. All of them were wearing rose-colored glasses.
* * * * *
Notes:
1. Top Image: N. Poltavseva, Woman with pince-nez. Screen shot of scene from "The Battleship Potemkin," 1925 silent film by Sergei Eisenstein. This work is in the public domain in Russia and public domain in the United States. Colorized and posterized in Gimp
2. Photos Nos. 1 & 2: Donald Trump and Joe Biden at the final 2020 presidential debate. (AP) (Fair Use); modifications in Gimp.
3. Photo No. 3: Gavin Newsom speaking at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. Modified in Gimp.
4. Photo No. 4: Office of Governor Ron DeSantis, Public domain photograph, via Wikimedia Commons. Unfocused in Gimp.
5. Color Test Image, Ishihara Plate 9, vectorized, Public Domain. Created: Original: Unknown date Unknown, Derivative: 20:50, 20 April 2021 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness#/media/File:Ishihara_9.svg
6. Image No. 9: Concert Crowd: Rolling Stones, 10cc, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren, 1976 at Knebworth House in England. by Sérgio Valle Duarte. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
7. End Image: Tommaso da modena, 1352. Painting of Hugues de Saint-Cher, Pubblico dominio. First medieval painting depicting the use of spectacles.