Imperfect Mechanisms
by Jes Malitoris
“I know you have rejected the surgery in the past,” your ophthalmologist says, “and I can understand why; I realize the idea of total eye replacement is scary. But if you would do some research on it, I think you’ll find it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
It is scary, yes. You have researched it. Perhaps it would be better if you hadn’t. The machines are almost beautiful things, with delicate innards, a crystalline web of lenses in a titanium-glass alloy shell, dyed to replicate the patient’s original eyes. One website rendered the procedure in safe and sterile 3D models: the careful maneuvering of a curved tool beneath the lid and into the skull; the precise scooping of the orb to preserve the integrity of the socket; the attachment of a custom-fit titanium cup; and then the slotting of the little spherical machine into its new socket. The procedure looks scary, yes, but that is not why.
“The problem is —” Your doctor pulls her chair closer and leans toward you, pressing her hands together. You’ve always found her voice soft and soothing, but you are tense now, your arms gripping the chair — “the problem is that so many people have had the procedure already that companies are discontinuing production of non-invasive lenses. I understand it seems daunting, but the procedure is fully covered by insurance now. Please get the surgery.”
You blink into her glassy eyes and thank her for the advice. You assure her you will think about it. On your way out, you pay for the appointment and another year’s expensive supply of contacts. Then you drive yourself home, squinting hard against the late afternoon sun.
No sooner do you slam the apartment door behind you than you peel contact lenses out of your aching eyes and slip your glasses on. You make dinner and start a load of laundry. The sun is setting, and you bring a cool drink out onto the tiny balcony that hangs out over the city. Already the sun is dipping behind the skyscrapers.
If you do not have this surgery, you can keep going for a good while. Corrective lenses are not discontinued yet, but your eyes don’t work without them. Eventually, you will have to live blind. You will have to rely on an inconsistent public transport system. Your work will change. You will never be able to see details again. There will be no more moments like leaving the ophthalmologist’s office with a new prescription and standing awestruck at the sheer beauty of a tree with its leaves so fine in your vision it reminds you of lace. You could have those details forever, you suppose.
Someone on the far rooftop is tending their garden. Perhaps with the surgery you could watch the bees that are surely humming around their dahlias, or perhaps they are daisies. The person turns and startles you by waving. At this distance, you cannot tell if they are waving to you, but you wave back.
It is not that it does not sound incredible to have cybernetic implants that would let you see objects on the edge of being obscured by the curvature of the earth. It is not that you fear putting machines where your eyes are.
You take off your glasses. Your own delicate mechanisms of imperfect lenses and refracted light relax. The clouds swirl into a sea of color, undersides seared with sun even as their upper reaches purple into dusk. The darkening city falls away below them, a galaxy spotted with distant billboards and scattered apartment lights that glow like planets and constellations.
To see the world like this all the time would not be so terrible.
Copyright © 2022 by Jes Malitoris
