Jonathan Purtill

Somehow the plague came out. Now Reverse Cataracts are wrecking everything! The towers are gone and everyone is in trouble. The germs were something new. They were actually kind. They didn’t eat you or shut you down or dissolve anything. They didn’t make you crazy with mixed up chemicals. Were they actually germs? I’m not sure. All they did, which ruined the world, was improve your eyesight.
But too much of anything too fast can be bad! People’s brains were not prepared for their eyes to become perfect tiny telescopes. Everyone could see so well they just had to concentrate and their eyes would ZOOM IN to infinity and the smallest details of the world revealed themselves. Maybe before you had to wait until you were close to see if a road sign said Mosswood or Millstone. Not a problem anymore! Now you could ZOOM from wherever you wanted and see the words or the flaking of the paint or the tiny blobs of metal all joined together.
But just like dying eyes make one big thing out of lots of small things (a man with a hat petting a cat in a rocking chair is just one nervous blur), telescopic eyes made too many small things out of things that should have been complete. Maybe you can’t see the forest for the trees? These new ZOOMLINGS can’t see the trees for the bark, or the bark for the wedges for the bits for the motes, etc. Most of them just lie down screaming and can’t stop screaming once they see how many things are happening. If they were to stand, they would see all the things that had to get out of their way: the pieces of air, the pollen, all the bug eggs. Most become hypnotized by how the forces of their yells make whorls in the nonsense. So the cities died as one to a howling chorus: It’s so busy! It’s too busy!