The old man walked slowly, but with a purpose, between the many boxes piled in the vacant room that used to be used as a garage. All cars had been banned from the highways a number of years ago, and all forms of transportation were done by pods that held 2 or 4 people and ran on a cushion of air between the pod and the road surface. These pods were computer controlled and traveled within inches of other pods that were travelling in the same direction. Most trips were done within the city, so the need for large pods had been eliminated for travel within the city, and the only time a 6 or 8 passenger pod was used was for travel between nearby cities. The Interstate 4 lane highways that had been built in the 50’s 60’s and 70’s had fallen into disrepair, and fortunately with the pods travelling on a cushion of air between them and the pavement the condition of the pavement no longer mattered much. The only time the government had to repair a road now was if the pavement surface started to crumble because the downward blast of air created by the pods rotors would send clouds of dust into the air if the road had turned to gravel. But because the traffic did not impact the roads surface the same way that the old time vehicles with tires had most roads were projected to last for a long time without spending money to repair them.
The parts in the boxes that the old man was walking through were many of the parts he would require to reassemble his 1978 Harley Davidson Duo Glide motorcycle. When the driverless pod method of moving people had been perfected all non-self-driving vehicles had been ordered off the road and destroyed. Government inspectors had been dispatched to check all the garages, and any vehicle that was not in a museum had to be either rendered immobile, or destroyed. By now there weren’t even any gasoline stations available to fuel one of these old vehicles anyway and the only gasoline you could buy was to operate emergency generators or the odd gas powered lawnmower, but it was only dispensed in 4 liter sealed cans and only with a permit..
Walt had carefully disassembled his pride and joy and had placed all the parts in boxes. To foil the government inspectors he had moved some of the boxes to his son’s house and moved the rest of them to his other daughter’s place. All of his children were living in the city now, and Walt had moved to the city a couple of years earlier as well. Now he was living with his granddaughter and her family in his youngest daughter’s house because his 60 year old daughter had moved in with her new boyfriend. During the previous couple of weeks he had, with the help of his family, brought all the scattered parts to the garage at the house, and now he was ready to reassemble his old Harley.
As Walt reassembled his Harley over the next few days he spent a lot of time thinking back over the years. He had been born in 1945, just after the end of World War II. He had a good life, and had married Bonnie, his childhood sweetheart. The other kids at grade school had teased Bonnie a lot, and all the teasing had left her as quite a shy and introverted person. Bonnie had the misfortune of being very nearsighted, and the thick glasses that she had to wear from the time she was little more than an infant had been the brunt of many jokes from the other kids. When Walt met Bonnie the year they were in grade 9 together he had thought that Bonnie looked wonderful wearing glasses, so he had persevered, and finally Bonnie had agreed to go out with him. Bonnie quit school after grade 10, and Walt lasted in school for a couple more years until he graduated from grade 12. After that Walt went to work as a carpenter and he and Bonnie married and attempted to settle down. Then the war in Vietnam intervened and Walt had to spend his 2 years in the Army like every other young man of draft age. Walt was fortunate in that he made it home to Bonnie without a scratch, although he never wanted to talk about his experiences – like many other men of that era.
When Walt got back he hired a few ex-military guys he had served with and started building houses. There was a need for reasonably priced homes in the suburbs, and Walt and his men built and finished about 20 homes a year. After 5 years of building homes Walt had become an established builder of quality homes and Walt and Bonnie felt that they now had enough money saved, along with a reasonably steady yearly income, to raise the 2 children that they had planned to have. Bonnie was already pregnant with the first one but unfortunately Bonnie suffered a miscarriage at around the 5 month mark and they blamed this on the fact that she had not been off the birth control pills she had been taking for a long enough period of time. It took another year before they had their first child, Kelly who was born in mid-1975. Then Randy came along in late 1977, and a couple of years later, in 1980 Diane was born. Diane was not planned, but when Bonnie found she was pregnant again they both welcomed Diane.
Walt had purchased his Harley brand new in the fall of 1977. It was a 1978 anniversary model with a special paint job and some extra chrome to celebrate Harley’s 75th year of being in business. Bonnie was pretty upset with Walt for buying a motorcycle, as she worried that Walt might end up getting killed and leave her with 2 children to raise on her own. Walt promised her he would be very careful and he increased his life insurance policy so that if anything happened to him she would be well taken care of and that mollified Bonnie enough in knowing that she would never have to work that she allowed Walt to have his toy. After Walt bought the Harley he and Bonnie would go for long rides in the Wisconsin summer and Bonnie realized some of the freedom that Walt felt when he rode.
Bonnie’s eyesight had continued to deteriorate until soon after the birth of Diane. Walt was fascinated by Bonnie’s thick myodisc lenses that she now wore in her glasses and he marveled at the fact that whenever he tried her glasses on he was unable to see a thing. Her newest prescription, after Diane was about a year old, ended up being the -25D prescription that she would have for the rest of her life. Her best visual acuity was somewhere around 20/30, which was good enough for her to obtain her driver’s license, but Bonnie didn’t really feel comfortable driving so she was dependent on Walt to take her anywhere she wanted to go. But Walt really didn’t mind. He had accepted the fact before he married Bonnie that she had terrible eyesight and that he would in essence be her eyes. The year that Diane was born was also the same year that now 5 year old Kelly got her first glasses the summer she started kindergarten. Kelly was fairly nearsighted for a 5 year old and she wore her glasses all the time as soon as she got them.
When Bonnie was a child the rate of myopia in North America was very low 25% of the population, with the greatest chance of becoming myopic being in those people with a university education. In a 3 year old, which was the age when Bonnie got her first glasses, there was less than 1% chance of a child being myopic. Neither of Bonnie’s parents had been nearsighted, so that had decreased the chance of Bonnie being myopic even more. But no one could dispute the fact that Bonnie had been myopic and her myopia increased throughout the years until it stabilized after her children were born. By the time Kelly was born the rates of myopia had increased to about 35% of the population and had continued increasing to the point where in the year 2040 over 88% of the world population had developed myopia. When Bonnie was born only about 10% of the 25% of the population would develop high myopia, but now the percentage of high myopia had increased to about 25% of the 88%. Certain ethnic groups had much higher rates of myopia and it had increased to almost 98% of the population in Taiwan. But no one seemed too concerned about people not having good eyesight any more. Almost everyone was in the same boat now, and it was not unusual for children to be wearing glasses for myopia from the time they were a year old. Laser surgery to correct a person’s vision had become very popular in the early 2000’s, but when some of the early adapters reached their mid to late 40’s it was discovered that their previously corrected myopia had now shifted to hyperopia and these people were not pleased that they had to wear glasses with plus lenses. In some cases they needed bifocals because they needed distance correction as well, but almost all of them had to wear fairly strong plus lenses for reading. Since the world no longer needed good distance vision, what with driverless cars and such, these people who needed strong correction to see close up were not very happy and laser surgery fell out of vogue.
None of Walt and Bonnie’s offspring had escaped being myopic. Randy got his first glasses by the time he was 6, and Diane, like Bonnie, was wearing glasses by the time she was 3. All of the grandkids were very nearsighted and the great grandkids were as well. But no one seemed bothered by having to wear thick lensed glasses anymore because now to not wear glasses made a person different than everyone else. This was such a change from when Bonnie grew up that it was almost hard to believe.
Diane, their youngest daughter, had been the most difficult of the 3 children. When Diane was 13 in 1993 she had been the only one to insist that she be allowed to get contact lenses, and Walt and Bonnie had given in to her wishes. Walt blamed the constant wear of contact lenses from the time she was 13 until she was about 27 as the reason why Diane was a lot more myopic than anyone else in the family. Bonnie had her myopic progression stop around -25D as did Kelly and Randy. These days -25D was considered a fairly normal prescription and over the years, while doctors had not been able to cure or even reduce the percentage of the population that became myopic, they were able to strengthen the eyes of those people so that myopia of -25 was really no worse than someone having myopia of around -3D when Bonnie was growing up. Now, as long as you were -25D or under your eyes remained healthy and your retina’s stayed firmly attached for your whole life. Myopic macular degeneration was now limited to those who had the extreme prescriptions like -40D or so. Diane had been quite a reader, and even after she got contacts she continued devouring books at an astonishing rate. Walt had refused to buy Diane the more expensive higher index lenses for her glasses because Diane would not ever wear her glasses and as a result Diane would absolutely refuse to wear her glasses and wore contacts all of the time. Because of Diane reading so much while wearing her contact lenses Walt felt that all this close work while wearing her strong distance prescription lead to Diane’s eyes becoming worse and worse, to the point where Diane now wore glasses with a prescription of close to -40D. But after she had turned 27, and had born 2 children by 2 different men Diane had cut back on wearing contacts and had to return to glasses most of the time. At age 28 Diane had her last child and by age 30 she had been forced to give upon ever wearing contacts.
Bonnie had passed away when she was 78. She had been very disappointed with Diane, as Diane had never seemed to settle down. But she loved her 10 grandchildren equally well, and when she died it was a very sad occasion. Walt had been on his own for 17 years now, and he felt it was now time to join Bonnie in the hereafter.
Finally the Harley was all back together and Walt was almost ready for his ride. Not only would anyone be caught if they tried to drive anywhere on the roads, the penalty for driving yourself in a vehicle that did not drive itself was a long prison sentence. That didn’t matter to Walt, because he was 95, and figured that he had already outlived his allotted lifespan. He would take the chance for one last ride, a 200 mile ride to the cemetery where his grandparents, his parents and his late wife were buried. A last ride, a ride to taste the freedom that no longer existed.
Over the years Walt had acquired ten 4 liter cans of gasoline and he poured 4 of them into the gas tank on the Harley before he attempted to fire it up. It took almost no time before the motor caught and after warming up it smoothed out and purred like it always had. Walt shut it off, and filled the tank to the brim. The Harley had a 5 gallon tank and at 30 miles to the gallon that meant it would take more than a full tank to make it to the cemetery that was almost 200 miles away. Walt stashed the other 5 cans into the tour pack and the saddlebags, knowing that he would need another 2 gallons to reach his destination and he also knew it was highly unlikely that he would be able to avoid the patrols to allow him to get back to his granddaughter’s house even if he could find some way to obtain another 5 gallons of gas..
Daylight travel was out of the question for Walt. He knew he would be spotted before he even left the city limits. And in daylight, as soon as he was on the open road, he would be a sitting duck for the air patrols. The air patrols were not really looking for anyone driving themselves, as the authorities were convinced that there were no more vehicles left that were not self-driving. But the air patrols were used to maintain traffic flow on the highways and in case of a problem they could cut the power to one, or more of the self-driving cars until whatever caused the problem could be sorted out. Walt figured that his only chance would be to travel at night, and he felt that a cloudless night with a full moon would give him his best chance to reach his destination.
The country had gone metric in the 2020’s but Walt still thought in the old Imperial system. With 200 miles to travel at a speed of about 60 miles per hour it would take Walt about 3.5 hours to reach the cemetery where Bonnie had been buried. If he left at 3 am on a cloudless night with a full moon Walt figured that he should make it to his destination between 6 and 7 am. Since daylight would be breaking around 6 am Walt felt that since he would be well away from the city and the air patrol base he had a pretty good chance of getting to his destination. He knew that he did not dare use the headlight on his Harley, and he hoped that there were no big potholes in the road that could cause him to lose control of the bike.
Walt waited patiently for the next cycle of the full moon. The first two nights were cloudy, but the third night promised clear skies, and Walt set his mental alarm clock for 2:30 am. He woke at the appointed time, and dressed quietly in his leather riding gear. He went to the garage, opened the door and looked lovingly at his waiting Harley. He pushed it out, closed the door, and coasted down the hill from the house before he fired the bike up. Walt had installed the original stock quiet mufflers that he had never used just so the noise would not be as great. He carefully navigated the dark streets by the light of the moon and when he reached the ramp of the old Interstate highway he rode up the ramp and onto the road. At the moment there were no hovering pods and the highway was deserted, which was a good sign for Walt.
The miles melted away. The light of the moon was bright enough that Walt was able to see any potholes and he managed to avoid them. But the highway was in surprisingly good repair and other than having a sore butt Walt was in his glory riding his old Harley. He stopped around the half way point and filled his fuel tank, using up 3 more gallons of gas.
At 6 am, as the sun started to gradually rise from the east Walt was within 50 miles of his destination. He had managed to maintain his speed, and he had been fortunate in that he had been able to duck off the highway whenever he saw the lights of a pod coming up behind him. If the computer that operated the pod had registered the mass of the Harley with its sensors it would have brought the pod to a halt and that would have alerted the authorities that there was a problem, so Walt had been very careful to get out of the way and fortunately he had only needed to dodge three or 4 pods. But now that daylight was breaking there was the possibility that an Air Patrol ship might be in the area and would pick his mass out as an anomaly, and that would bring them running to search for whatever had caused the blips on their screen.
Luck was riding with Walt that night and he was able to ride right up to the gates of the cemetery. The gates were closed, which Walt had figured would be the case. He had lived most of his life in this town and he knew the schedule of the town as well as he knew his own name. He rode the Harley down a lane beside the cemetery fence, and he parked it under a huge old tree. He could see Bonnie’s gravestone from outside the fence, and he spotted his parents graves as well. But he was going to have to walk to the restaurant for a bite to eat before the cemetery gates were opened.
Walt walked over to the main street, where the little restaurant he had eaten in so many times had just opened up. The long ride, and the walking had been hard on Walt and he was full of pain from his bad back. But he didn’t want to take any of the pills he had been saving, so he put up with the pain. He knew almost everyone in the restaurant, and they all wanted to chat with him, but finally he had to leave. He walked back to the cemetery and went to pay his respects to his parents and grandparents. Then he went over to lay down on Bonnie’s grave. He took out all the pills he had been saving, opened his bottle of water, and washed them down. It took a while, but eventually he drifted off, dreaming of his wonderful life and his very nearsighted wife, who he was now going to join in death. “Would she still need glasses in heaven?” was Walt’s last thought.
Specs4ever Oct. 2015