Annie
"So sorry I'm late!" I flustered, brushing my hair out from my face. Tucking it hurridly behind my ear, I extended my palm out for the doctor in front of me to shake. "I'm Annie, from the paper," I smiled sweetly, hoping that he'd find my faux clumsy nature endearing.
It wasn't entirely fake, but I definitely wasn't naturally as charming as the person I pretended to be on the job.
I could sense a pair of eyes on me from the corner of the waiting room, observing the interaction with great interest. Like a set of opposing magnets, my own gaze was drawn to his. Greeted by a charming smirk, the rest of his expression oozed with scrutiny. His eyes were dark; so dark in fact that I wouldn't have been surprised if they were the same colour in Mono as they were in Multi. A curious brow raised above them, questioning just exactly who I was putting on this show for.
'Not him', was the answer, as I averted my gaze back to the likeable older man in front of me. He took my hand gratefully, welcoming me to the clinic.
The melancholic waiting room would have been almost silent, had it not been for a baby crying its tiny heart out for everyone to hear. Its mother bounced gently, trying to soothe and remedy its upset.
"Thanks for taking the time to come and talk to us about this," he smiled enthusiastically, paying no notice to the wailing. "With more publicity, we're hoping for greater funding, so this is really helping us out."
"Oh not a bother," I smiled, following him down the hallway to his office. "We're hoping it will be mutually beneficial! I must say, it's a fascinating study. How long have you been working on developing the drug?"
"Ohh," he pondered, placing his palms on his desk as he lowered his body into his seat. "Ten, maybe twelve years? A long time, that's for sure!"
"Over a decade!" I exclaimed, a little surprised by the revelation. "Gosh, that's a lot of hard work."
"Not really," he jibed, a warm grin illuminating his soft face. "Formulating the drug was a piece of cake. Getting funding was the issue," he admitted with a shrug. "Mono's make up roughly 40% of the world. That's a huge amount of business to lose if the products catered towards them are no longer needed. Investors have seen us as a bit of a menace, I think," he chuckled heartily, obviously just glad to finally be able to test his hard work out.
I considered his words and the relevance they had to my own life. From my computer screen to my wardrobe choices, everything was slightly different when I was Mono. Walking down the high street, there were Mono exclusive department stores, tech services geared towards those with Monovision and arcades specially made to accommodate them.
It kind of pissed me off knowing that I had been planning on going to a Mono specific store on my way home to grab dinner. The prices were always marked up, but I just accepted it as a reality of everyday life. Perhaps I should have been more critical of the world I called my home.
"So it's corporate businesses who have been preventing developments?" I pried, seeing what juice I could get from the intriguing old man in front of me.
"Yes and no," he considered. His hair was white. Even with Mono, I could tell. "There's a big risk of public backlash too. We've already had a few protesters accusing us of playing God."
"Do you think that you are?" I pressed.
"I choose to see it as a way of enabling people to live life to their fullest. No different from plastic surgery, or buying a faster car. If it makes someone happy, then why not?"
I considered his words, before shrugging in agreement. Armed and ready with questions, I made the most of my limited time with the doctor.
"It all goes back to our prehistoric ancestors," he explained, when I questioned the origins of our collective trait. "Most likely a mutation to encourage finding a mate. As hunter-gatherers, colour vision was essential for personal survival, but reproduction was essential to species survival. Falling in love served to remedy both of these - the species would keep developing, and the more people who saw colour, the better the hunt would be. Now, we might have developed a lot since then, but we've not yet reached the stage in our evolution where this little snag in our brains has been ironed out. We're hoping our drug will help to do that."
