Logan’s Myopia

I wrote this short story as a creative exercise around the word of the day: Myopic, which is an adjective describing someone or something that lacks imagination, foresight or intellectual thought.

Logan stared at his computer wondering where the last two days had gone. He’d been so obsessed with solving the code for his company’s program that he’d only moved from his desk to heat up dinner, go to the bathroom or take a shower. Wait, had he taken a shower? He couldn’t remember. He had three excel sheets, countless browsers and the company’s data processing program that they called Myopia. He had officially finished it almost four hours ago but now he was rechecking it just to make sure. He ran it again. It succeeded. No error messages. He leaned back in his chair and looked outside. The sun was out and a slight breeze was blowing through the green leaves of the tree outside of his window. Maybe he could take a shower and see if Amelia wanted to go grab some dinner. He was suddenly very hungry. Amelia was a girl he’d taken on a couple of dates the past week or so. Logan checked his phone for messages. She’d sent him 14 messages and called him three times, all expressing anger that he hadn’t talked to her for the past two days. He honestly didn’t understand how she could get so upset, Logan had been clear with her that when he got focused on a problem, little else mattered outside of that. He messaged her, ignoring her angry messages and said Would you like to go get something to eat? Logan waited for a moment for her to respond and then through the phone on the bed and jumped up to take a shower.

Ten minutes later, Logan emerged from the shower and checked his phone. Who is this? Logan eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Sure it had been a couple days but it didn’t make since for her to forget him completely. He decided not to respond sarcastically. Logan, we went on a couple of dates last week. Do you remember?  The three dots pulsated on his phone screen. No I don’t remember you. Please leave me alone. Amelia responded. Logan’s mouth opened in disbelief. He’d had girls ghost him or tell him he was ugly or boring or to nice or thought he was smarter than them but they had all at least remembered him. And to go from the angry messages and phone calls to completely not remembering him didn’t make any sense at all. Logan continued to stare at his phone. Thinking about their dates and the sex on the second date. Surely he’d at least been memorable. Logan rubbed his forehead. His stomach growled. The hunger pain returned. Logan decided to drive the two blocks to the gas station for a snack and say hi to Ramone, the store owner that lived in the back room and always popped out, even if he had a clerk on duty to say hi. Logan grabbed his jacket and a little cash and left the house. His neighbor, Tom, was outside mowing his lawn.

                “Hey, Tom!” Logan called. Tom stopped walking the mower and stared at him. He didn’t smile. He didn’t wave back. He simply stared at him. Okay, nevermind. Logan muttered under his breath. He got in his car and watched as Tom turned, faced forward again and continued pushing the lawn mower.

                At EZ Shop, Logan entered the front door as he usually did. The bell of the door chimed and echoed throughout the small store. “Hello, welcome customer, I will be right there!” Ramone yelled from the back room. “Hi, Ramone!” Logan said as he headed straight for the cooler with the Mountain Dew and a frozen hot pocket and then walked to the counter. Ramone stood professionally on the other side of the counter. His dark brown hair and mustached neatly combed. “Hello, sir, will that be all for you today?” Ramone asked. Logan raised an eyebrow. “Um, yes. Why are you talking to me like that?” Logan asked. “Oh, I’m sorry sir, it was not my intention to offend you.” Ramone replied. Logan handed the man acting like he was a stranger the money. Logan was so speechless he didn’t even know how to talk to him to get him to be normal. He took his snack and drink and left. He’d been visiting Ramone in his convenience store for almost three years now. Why was he suddenly treating him like a new customer? Logan was a little bothered, after all the effort he’d put into that relationship, arguably the relationship with your local convenience store clerk was one of the most important ones if you didn’t want get embarrassed at buying condoms at 3am or buying three Gatorades the next morning after the hangover had taken over. He opened his other messages. One was from his mother, asking him to call her when he was free next. She’d sent the message two hours ago.

                Logan pressed the call button. His own mother had to remember him at least. “Hey Logan, something weird is going on. Your father is acting like he doesn’t know me. And he just started frantically cleaning the house for the past four hours.” She said. “Stepfather. Mom.” Logan corrected. “Fine. Your stepfather, Logan. You’re missing the point.” She said. “Sorry Mom. Yeah I’ve ran into something similar. This girl I was talking to, and my neighbor and the store clerk are acting like they don’t know me too. You’re the first person I’ve talked to that has remembered me.” Logan said. “There has to be some sort of explanation. It’s only a few people acting weird. Maybe there is an ozone alert or something?” His mother said. “Hey mom, let me call you back in a minute.” Logan said. He opened his email and found a message from his boss. His boss hadn’t spoken to him two weeks, since the last time he’d checked on the program Logan had been working on. The email read:

Hello Logan,

Thank you for completing the program for Myopia. It is officially finished and now that it’s finished I would like to completely explain to you its’ purpose since the people around you are going to start acting different. Myopia was commissioned by the President of the United States. The code that you created reaches everyone in the world that comes into contact with the internet and carefully examines their processing skills to determine whether the person is capable of broad complicated thought or if they are more shortsighted. If they are more shortsighted all memories that interfere with their primary productive purpose in society are wiped. The code will not affect you. As we still need you, however, you are now blocked from altering the code for Myopia just in case you felt the desire to rewire its’ purpose. I will contact you soon for more information as the effects of Myopia is realized throughout the world.

Thank you for your amazing talent and efforts,

Mark

Of all the thoughts and concerns that could have popped into his head, Logan immediately said out loud, “I knew my stepdad was a dumbass.”

Thank you for reading! My next article will be focused on dance etiquette.