Cyborg vision

My new contact lenses hurt my eyes. That is, I wore them yesterday and today my eyes hurt. These are the lenses approved by the FDA for people with dry eyes. I think they’re making my eyes dryer, if the fact that they’d practically adhered to my eyeballs by last night is anything to go by. And my eyes were red when I got up this morning, which can’t be a good sign. If they’re not able to rehydrate themselves behind closed lids when they’re doing nothing more strenuous than a little REM for eight hours, how can they be expected to be any good staring at a monitor all day?

Sometimes when it happens that my lenses refuse to come out, I think that perhaps they really have fused to my eyes and that in a wonderful cyborg-like spontaneous scientific advance, my vision will be perfect from now on. Not, as is more likely, that I’d get a horrible infection and go blind, as is probably the more likely outcome of leaving one’s lenses in For Ever.

Scene: Deserted office. Red-eyed worker blows her nose loudly.
A, entering: Oh. Sorry. Are you okay? [Tentatively, not really wanting to let herself in for an hour’s sobbing and the minutae of someone else’s love life] Did, um, something happen?
B, blinking away the tears and squinting at the blur in the doorway: No, [sniffs] no, [dabs at eyes], I’m fine [trumpets into paper hanky]. Just playing too much Minesweeper and going blind.
A, exiting in haste: Oh. Right. Well, I’ll just go, then.

Note to self: Stop playing Minesweeper.

3:36 pm - 03 February 2004