The city of Simulon through Kavi’s “Lenses,” was a symphony of vibrant colours and bustling efficiency. He had received the lenses many years ago, as part of a city-wide initiative launched by the governing council. They were advertised as a groundbreaking step in urban living, promising to enhance daily experience and improve morale of the citizens. At the time, the city’s stark infrastructure and chaotic reality had been a heavy burden on its people, and that’s where these lenses came into picture, offering the promise of ease and happiness while navigating.
Kavi was grateful. His morning commute transformed from an exercise in urban despair into something almost beautiful. The potholes became street art. The slums became quirky housing. The smog became golden hour, every hour. His wife Maya had cried with relief the day they got theirs. “I can finally breathe here,” she’d said, though of course the lenses did nothing for actual air quality.
For years, the lenses had worked flawlessly. The city had accepted it as a way of life, an unspoken agreement to see the world as the city’s council wanted them to see it. At first, Kavi had seen the lenses as a simple solution, a necessary adjustment to make life in the city more tolerable. He was complicit, accepting the beautiful illusion in exchange for daily comfort and the pervasive sense of civic pride that permeated their augmented world.
But lately, something had felt off. It had started subtly, a barely perceptible flicker during one of his regular train journeys. When the train pulled into Nexus Station, he saw it… a brief, almost imperceptible tear in the fabric of his perfect world. For a brief moment, the pristine white platform wall was replaced by a crooked wall with ugly red stains. He blinked, and it was gone. “Just a glitch”, he said to himself, “a minor imperfection in an otherwise flawless system.”
The glitches, however, became more frequent. A few months later, he noticed that Sector 11 of the re-development area, where his lenses displayed a bustling, vibrant urban renewal project started showing faint, flickering images of sprawling slums and squalor underneath. He’d quickly averted his gaze, ignoring the discomfort from what he has started calling “fleeting sensations.”
From past few days the illusions were barely holding. The gleaming pedestrian plaza projected through his lens would sometimes show its true, dilapidated state. The faces of passersby would flash raw exhaustion, poverty, or desperation, before snapping back into their blissful, augmented selves. It was like catching a glimpse of another Simulon. This Simulon was a harsh, brutal truth, impossible to ignore.
That evening, the city’s loudspeakers hummed to life, as they did every evening: “Welcome, citizens. Happiness index at record highs. Air quality improved 40% this quarter. Please keep lenses activated for optimal experience. Unauthorized removal may cause visual distortion and psychological distress. Thank you for building a better Simulon.”
Maya reached for Kavi’s hand on the couch. “Long day?”
“Maya,” he said carefully. “Do you ever wonder what it really looks like? Without the lenses?”
She stiffened. “Why would I wonder that?”
“The glitches. You must have noticed?”
“Everyone gets glitches, Kavi. That’s what the helpline is for. They update the firmware.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “This city nearly broke us, remember? Before the lenses. I couldn’t leave the house without having a panic attack. The poverty, the pollution, the hopelessness everywhere. The lenses saved us.”
“Or they just hide…”
“Don’t.” Her voice went sharp. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
The next day Kavi woke up at dawn. With his heart pounding, he walked to the window. The outside world as seen through his lenses was a vibrant, green city landscape, with sunlight reflecting off the newly renovated glass skyscrapers. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and with a decisive motion, pulled out his right contact lens.
His vision blurred, then sharpened, revealing a scene of stark, brutal contrast to what he was used to. The vibrant green trees were already dead, some of them barely old stumps. The glass skyscrapers were multi-storied slums, crippling under their own weight. The bright sunlight was replaced by a grey smog that was piercing his bare eyes.
He gasped, then decided to look at the street below. The aesthetic pavement showed signs of years of neglect, roadsides were littered with rubbish. Near an overflowing trash bin, a woman was sitting, begging for alms. Her face was covered with dirt, her clothes were in tatters, and her hollow eyes stared blankly at the leftover food morsels, being devoured by street dogs.
He staggered back. The world, without the lenses, was a nightmare. A terrifying, brutal, unforgiving one at that. He closed his right eye and looked from his left, the one still shielded by the Lenses. Through it, the world remained bright, clean, perfect. The begging woman was gone, replaced by a cheerful street florist, while the waste receptacle was a flower stall.
He stood there, seeing heaven through one eye and hell through the other. The conflict was unbearable. He could put the other lens back in, retreat to his blissful ignorance, pretend he hadn’t seen anything. Or he could face the truth, the raw, unfiltered agony of it.
Slowly, he realized he must take a call. He still has the freedom to choose what he wants to see. He can escape the reality, or he can accept it. That choice is still there (yet).
But which world would he choose to live in? And even if he makes a choice, would he be ableto convince himself, and the world around him? He looked at Maya still sleeping peacefully. Seven years ago, she’d been drowning in depression. The lenses gave her back her life. By revealing the truth, would he be freeing her or destroying her?
The answer, like the horizon of his fractured world, remains eternally, terrifyingly, open.
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