Since I have been experiencing “visual disturbances” lately, I went to a clinic in the city to have a retinal examination today. This involved not wearing make up to work, which made everyone ask if I was alright, then having to hike up a big hill to sit in a waiting room for an hour and a half with a lot of old people who looked like they died some time ago. The lady at the desk made me fill out lots of forms that asked me to estimate how many alcoholic beverages I consume in an average week and other impossible questions, then I waited some more.

A girl called Julia anaesthetised my eyeballs and made my tears yellow, then she poked them to check my eyeball pressure or something. After that, she put the dilating drops in my eyes and led me to a smaller, more crowded waiting room that could have passed for a methadone clinic because everyone there was glassy-eyed and staring at the wall because we could not see properly. An asian surgeon looked at my eyeballs with a magnifying glass, which he accidentally dropped onto my crotch and then went to retrieve and then awkwardly stopped himself. Then a fat lady took photos of my eyeballs and yelled at me for blinking every time the camera flashed. By this stage, I looked like I had taken a lot of pills, except I wasn’t smiling all that much.

The doctor then said I have “very healthy eyes” and dictated a letter to my father using his dictaphone machine, while I looked at myself in a hand mirror. Then he said “if your car won’t start, there’s a problem with its engine. Maybe you just need to take better care of yourself.” And I said, “I do, I love myself.” And he said, “Okay, whatever.” I don’t think he was much of a people-person, because in his office he had 5 pictures of his dogs and 1 picture of his children.