Читать книгу Execution Plan - Patrick Thompson - Страница 29

I have these spots in front of my eyes. I get more of this sort of thing these days. It’s because I’m getting old. Things are closing down. Non-essential services are being run down. Manpower is being diverted elsewhere.

Perhaps it’s not that. Perhaps it’s a brain tumour pushing my eyeballs out of shape.

I go to the doctor. I say I have spots on front of my eyes. He refers me to an optician. Opticians do eyes, he explains. Perhaps it’s eyestrain, he tells me.

You didn’t think it was a brain tumour, did you? he asks.

No, I tell him. Never even thought about it. Never even crossed my mind.

He knows I’m lying. Everyone lies to him. We don’t make anything of it.

I go to see the optician. He makes me read things I can’t read. He tries different lenses out.

Suddenly I can read all of the rows on his chart.

He tells me one eye has a focal length half the focal length of the other. One of them is round. The other is egg-shaped. That’ll need correcting. He can do that with lenses. That’s what he does.

He does me a prescription for lenses. I choose some frames. It’s risky doing that before I can see properly, but I don’t have a choice. I don’t want computer programmer frames. I don’t want trainspotter frames. I want to choose good frames, right now.

They’ll be ready in a week. In a week I go and get them. I put them on. I can see everything. I don’t look a lot like a computer programmer. I don’t look much like a trainspotter. I can get away with it. I can carry it off.

I go outside and read things. I read road signs. I read everything, because now I can.

I wonder how one eyeball got egg-shaped. What made it do that? Was it happier that way?

I think about brain tumours. Perhaps a brain tumour has pushed one of my eyeballs out of shape.

I have these spots in front of my eyes.

And now I can see them really clearly.