Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Eye exam

The letters were big. They grew smaller, until his eyes were begging for mercy.

Then the lenses come on. "Does 1 look better than 2?" Change lens. "Now?". Change lens again. "Now?" "2 or 3?" .

Enough already. How bad was it? Couldn't they just give him the verdict so he'd be on his way?

That's it. His eyes were shot.  All those days of feeling too tired after work must have been because of this. Anyway, he was almost hitting the big 3-0. Time to add some geekiness to the visage?

As he sat there, he idly wondered what kind of frames he'd go for. Did he want thin wire frames, or even rimless glasses? A couple of his friends wore these and they didn't look half-bad. Or maybe he could try the really big, thick-framed glasses - the ones with horn rims like Ira Glass or that guy from Death Cab from Cutie. He wondered about the pain and overhead of wearing glasses - he was pretty lousy even with his sunglasses, forgetting them at various places only to scramble back to pick them up. Maybe contacts was a better way to go? But the idea of inserting plastic into his eyes made him shudder.

This time the doctor came in. The tests (which were first conducted by the assistant) continued. The letters went from readable to barely legible. 2 bled into Z and D into O into 0. It was a game of "fit the right lens", and he was losing. Badly.

"1". "No, 2 is clearer." "Can we try that again? I'm not quite sure." "I can't make out a single letter."

"Try. Give it your best shot."

*sigh* "..." <insert wild guess here>

"Very good."

?! Hm.

The exam comes to an end.

Doc: "It's like your eyes are refusing the glasses. Your eyesight is fine. You even managed to read some of the letters from the 20/15 test!"

All that speculation for nothing. He was slightly relieved - a drastic change to look and lifestyle averted.  

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

great piece....just love the way you write..Marry me !

nupur said...

lol <@comment above> Sounds like your friends playing a prank on you.
So what was the reason anyway? Sometimes drinking lots of water helps.

CAR said...

I am 20/15 too... welcome my super human friend!

Ajay said...

DQ: I'm shell-shocked (and secretly pleased:) - FWIW, it's a compliment for my writing)

I don't think this is someone I know :).

Consciously taking breaks (actually stepping away from my desk) while working seems to be helping.

CAR: Nice :).