Routine Test

It was an ordinary morning of an ordinary day. I got up at 7:30am, brushed my teeth, threw on my glasses, and pulled back my hair into a rough bun. I had slept with it wet, so it had developed unpleasant kinks in awkward places. After packing a simple lunch into my Tupper ware- tuna salad with rice crackers and a side of sliced cucumber- I checked Google Maps to make sure I would make it to the optometrist in time. I would arrive exactly 3 minutes late, the screen told me. It did occur to me that with parking and checking in at the front desk, I would be at least 5 minutes late, but that didn't seem an unforgivable offence. I took another minute to apply lip gloss and a spritz of perfume, scratch Joni between the ears, before swiping the keys from my mantle and half-running to the car.

It's true that maybe I drove a smidge more recklessly than if I weren't anxious about most certainly being late, though admittedly cutting corners wouldn't do much to rectify that fact. I thought about how quickly the window of opportunity for correcting a future mistake narrows, as I accelerated through another yellow light and took a right turn on a red to avoid the busy main street.

"This is a routine test," said the optometrist's assistant. "It's meant to check the health of your eyes. Healthy eyes can perceive things in the periphery - this is a sensitivity which has, for millennium, provided a vital advantage for the survival of our species. When hunting in the forest, for example, our sharp frontal vision would be able to hone in on our prey, while a small shift in our periphery could alert us of potential danger - a snake or a jaguar, or maybe a member of our neighboring tribe."

In the dark room I shifted a little in my chair, listening with a mixture of mild interest and impatience. These questions about human nature, or rather the evolution of our nature, are usually very interesting to me - and the enthusiasm of a professional whose line of work clearly reflects their genuine passions endears me to learning from them. This young man has a gentle but animated voice, pleasant to listen to especially given his speaking tone is noticeably more formal for those of his generation. But this was all marred by the fact I had squeezed my appointment in before my six-and-a-half hour shift at work, and I just remembered that I forgot to set Joni's feeder. My right heel shakes a little and I sneak a peek at my phone while he continues his explanation.

"Anyway, it is important to test our peripheral vision for early signs of glaucoma, or retinal issues. It's not a common prognosis for someone your age, but it's always better to check preemptively. Treatment is always more effective in the early stages.

Here's how the test works. Place your chin here and lean your forehead against the goggles. Stare straight ahead at the tiny image in the center - it should be a house. Once your eyes focus on the house, it should become crystal clear, and the space surrounding it will melt away into a white expanse."

I do as instructed, and the little house appears like a mirage in the center of my field of vision. It is a neat little square with a red roof, and it is perched atop a bright, green flat with the sky the color of hope behind it. The house is so small that there are no windows or doors. The colors are friendly, but I can't imagine anything alive living inside it anymore than in the blank white field surrounding the central image. "Okay," I say.

The optometrist assistant places a small plastic contraption in my right hand. "The test takes two minutes to complete. One minute for the right eye, and one for the left. The task for both eyes is the same. Small dots will flash in the nothingness surrounding the house. Without taking your focus off the image, click the button in your hand each time you see a flash."

I nodded in my restraint without removing my face from the device. It was a simple test, and I instinctively remember it from my last visit to the eye doctor two years ago, right before my birthday. I was about the age that vision tends to stabilize, and my prescription stopped changing every year. Now, I'm reaching the age that complications anywhere in the body are want to arise. And since I finally have health insurance, I thought it would be responsible to book a visit. I repress the thought of my skyrocketing screentime and nights with my face inches away from my phone screen.

"You are not allowed to move your focus off from the house. This is very important. Don't follow the dots with your eyes- that defeats the purpose of the test. Are you ready?"

Tiny flickers of grey pixels begin to appear in the white blank space around the house. Each lasts only a split second. Click, click, click, click. They begin steadily and then quicken. Before one flash disappears, another flickers into view. Above, below, at the very edges. Click, click, click, click. I feel confident that I've caught them all, even the faintest fuzziest one. I never take my eye off the cheerful little house.

"Well done. You've passed the test."

After leaving the dimly lit office, the sun stings my eyes even after many of the rays are absorbed by the parking lot black top. Late morning in San Diego after the marine layer burns away has that severe feeling, even in early April; the smell of warm dust and eucalyptus bark permeates the air. Squinting, with my keys jangling in my hand, I dart inside my dusty Honda Accord, slotting the ignition with one hand and typing directions into my phone with the other. 17 minutes before my shift starts, and 21 minutes with traffic on Google Maps.

I sigh in resignation and open my pet monitoring app, scrolling through the screenshots that the smart camera saved for review. At 7:36 Joni is still sitting at the front door, her tail agitated. Waiting to see if I will change my mind and come back inside. At 8:15 she is on the windowsill, crouched in her most earnest hunting position, probably eking at a bird or an insect. 8:21, sniffing around her feeder. 8:37, her brown rump is seen in the far edge of the screen as she slinks off to the office where she likes to take her first nap of the day.

I negotiate a few more seconds to examine the current feed, moving the camera around with the remote. She's nowhere to be seen in the living room or kitchen, and I couldn't afford another camera for the other rooms yet. Anyways, it's still early - Joni usually remains curled up in the cat hammock on the west facing mirror in our office until at least 10am. I smile thinking of her familiar weight bearing a healthy curve into the fabric, and her nose tucked into the tawny fluff of her stomach, striped paws outstretched. She always sleeps in the same position, ever since she was just a kitten. I put my car into reverse, and absentmindedly follow the GPS lady's directions toward the 5 freeway.

Once I merge onto the steady stream of traffic, my mind settles into autopilot. I've driven this route plenty a time now, and ever since my car stereo fizzled out a few months ago it has become my moment of quiet contemplation. Today my mind drifts to a conversation I had with my friend about the protests and the war - she was caught in an ethical quandary, choosing between sides, debating the justifications behind the escalations. "The problem is I can't even trust anything in the media anymore," she remarks. At the time, I did feel a tinge of shame. My algorithm showed me video after graphic video, and I became captive to the feed of never-ending horror and violence, unable to peel away. I tried to explain to her the footage - bodies buried in the collapsed schools and apartment buildings, limbs of children collected in the arms of their loved ones, holding the pieces and weeping. It's been months since I stopped sharing these snippets on my story, minutes each and too small to carry the truth of war. So easy to scroll past, and scroll through. "I try not to watch the news anymore - the more I see, the more confused I am about what's really happening. It's like whiplash." We did hug after that long conversation that went nowhere, both ending with urging the other to take care of our nervous systems - being constantly in flight or fight mode doesn't help us survive the modern world. It was 3am when we said goodnight, and I set my alarm for work the next day. What I had wanted to say, and was now occuring to me, was this: is there any justification for-

On the offramp, there's a body laying across the white stripe of the freeway shoulder. I was braking rather strongly for the merge, because I'd been driving fast as everyone does in California (the standard 80mph but letting the pointer of the speedometer just straddle the right side of the mark.) It barely signaled as a blip in my vision, a dark spot breaking the continuous stream of white in my peripheral. When I saw it a jolt traveled up my spine, and like a pulse it jerked my neck around to find the rearview mirror. Just a streak of dull red and brown stripes, unrecognizable and limp. Yet, instantly recognizable.

Joni -

I force my car to halt, pulling into the shoulder and unbuckling my seatbelt. Around me a chorus of car horns and the vague insults of angry drivers. Engine still running, I throw open my door and begin jogging. The bright sun dampens the sensory havoc around me, like tunnel vision but full body. As I get closer, a slow realization descends like a weighted blanket on my shoulders.

It's the racoon - it's been here a few days. I drove by it every day on my way to work since Monday and it must have barely registered in my periphery, while my mind was somewhere else. By its size, it was clearly young - an adolescent, about the size of an adult cat. The dry heat must have prevented any severe rotting of its flesh, but the poor creature was mauled beyond form. My phone buzzes in my hand with a calendar notification - "shift starts in 5 minutes" - and my mind begins its work placating me. She's safe- it's just roadkill. Nothing you haven't seen countless times before. You can go back to the car now and take a few deep breaths. When you get to work you'll have a good story to tell to explain your tardiness. Your boss will be forgiving and your coworkers will be sympathetic to your stress the whole day.

Meanwhile my legs continue walking toward her with some invisible strength that drains away as soon as I reach the body. Like a rag I crumple to the ground and sweep her up in my arms, heaving with silent tears. Her body is so light, so unbelievably soft, and she smells like musk and asphalt and rubber tires. The tickle of whiskers on my forearm and the weight of the long tail brushing my lap, triggers my grip to tighten even more. My vision blurs as the cars whip by us one by one, each person following the directions of their GPS and the schedule they set in their digital calendars, and while they all can see I know that no one will stop to bother us. I gather her up to my chest and I cry and creak out prayers for her body to be reunited in her next life, to return her to the damp earth and moss where she will be whole again, and I love you I love you I'm so sorry.