Through Polar Colored Glasses
Mirelle Lindquist
Silver starlight glistens along the rows of vials that fill the storage loft. Who knew soil could come in so many different colors? Sure, some are probably filled with mercury or uranium or other elements that couldn’t possibly be used to grow crops, but they’re beautiful nonetheless. As the ship turns, Earth comes into view and I feel a wave of something, not relief, that would be too simple, too small – this is something much larger than relief; it’s a feeling that can only be described as knowing that after seven years of wondering, hoping, I’m finally going home.
​
The house looks just as I remember it – the large glass dome with four smaller ones sloping off at the base, their facets glistening with rainbows in the late afternoon sun. It’s beautiful, but my head starts to throb from the brightness and I have to look away. Walking through the vegetable garden, the air grows redolent with smell of swollen pumpkins. I walk up to the door but it’s locked; they must be out, maybe they thought I would be another hour or so and went to get a cake, or wine, something to celebrate my return – that seems like something they would do. Something they would do – I’m reminded that these are people I haven’t seen in seven years, and my knowledge of who they are, what they would do, comes only from distant memories. After ten or so minutes, I see them coming down the road, strolling at a leisurely pace and carrying a box. My mom turns her head, sees me, waves frantically and jabs my dad so that he too turns around and waves in the same frantic motion. They rush up to the house and embrace me, and even though I sense that I should reciprocate the gesture, I can only manage a hesitant pat in return. “We got you a cake!” my mom says proudly. Of course they did.
​
“We were so worried about you!” my dad remarks, for what’s probably the fifth time since we’ve been sitting here, as he pours tea into each of our cups.
​
“We’re just so happy you’re home”, says my mom.
​
“Yeah”, I say, “so am I.” Suddenly my head fills with pressure and I feel like it might actually pop, so I hold my mug up to my face as if the steam rising from it might loosen this pressure, but it only makes me feel overheated. I hear my mom ask, “Is everything okay?”, and then the world goes black.
​
When I wake up, my parents are standing over me, and their pursed lips turn up at the corners as they see my eyes slowly open. Someone who must be a doctor comes over, and as I try to sit up, they place a hand on my shoulder to stop me.
​
“What’s going on?” I say, even though I know that I blacked out – what I really want to say is “what are the medical reasons for my blackout and will I be okay”, but I’m too disoriented to say anything that coherent.
​
“Well, you fainted”, says the doctor, as if I didn’t know that, “so we’re going to run some tests. Your parents tell me you’ve just returned from a space mission, so it could just be that the whole thing took quite a toll on you, but we want to check some stuff just to make sure it’s nothing serious. Before we start – did you have any injuries while in space?”
“I don’t think –“, I start, and then I remember. On my way back to earth, the ship entered a pocket of asteroids and began dodging them. I had strapped myself down until it looked like we were clear, and then went up to the storage loft to check on the soil samples. When I was up there, another asteroid must have come though because suddenly the ship jolted and I flew across the room and smacked my head into the wall. I didn’t think it was terribly serious at the time, but as I say it out loud, I’m beginning to realize it may be worse than I thought. After a variety of scans and tests, the doctors agree that I have moderate traumatic brain injury, requiring a combination of physical therapy, medication, and … a pair of glasses?
​
“These aren’t ordinary glasses,” the doctor chuckles, “they’re to help you interpret people’s facial expressions. Survivors of traumatic brain injury tend to lose much of their capacity for facial emotion recognition, despite the fact that this reading of emotions is crucial for reintegration into society and social rehabilitation, especially for you, after seven years of being alone. When you look at someone, these glasses will pick up their facial expression and then translate that into something like ‘happy’, or ‘sad’, so that you can then react appropriately to the situation.” When I stare back skeptically, the doctor asks if I’ve had any trouble assessing people’s emotions since being back on Earth, and, although I’ve only been back for maybe a few hours, I realize I have. From first greeting my parents, to listening to their mulling over my return, to waking up to their faces, contorted with emotions I couldn’t quite place, every interaction that should be helping me reform a bond with people I love has only left me feeling more disconnected from them. But the doctor’s explanation makes sense, or at least seems like it should make sense. I take the glasses.
​
The next day, we go to my sister Leah’s house for brunch. The door swings open to reveal a beaming woman who embraces me immediately. “Charlie!” she exclaims.
“Umm, hi?”
​
She glances at my perplexed face, laughs, and explains, “It’s a mask, silly! I forgot how long you’ve been away. Sorry, I realize you have no idea what’s going on, but you’ll get used to it – a lot of people wear them for fun. It’s sort of like makeup, but you don’t have to worry about applying it well and you can really just completely change your face, like, whenever you want. I mean, I think it’s really cool, although some people”, she shoots a look at mom and dad, “think it’s weird, but they’ll catch up. Anyways, ughhh, I’m so happy to see you! Here, come sit down, Alex is just taking the scones out of the oven.” As we sit down, Leah turns to me. “Oh hey, since when do you wear glasses?”
​
“Oh these aren’t really glasses,” I start to explain, “I mean, they are, but not like seeing glasses. Basically they help me interpret people’s emotions, since it’s something I can’t really do on my own because I hit my head on my way back to Earth.”
​
“Wait, you hit your head, oh my god, are you okay?”
​
“Yeah – well, I have traumatic brain injury, so no, not really, but I’m alive and in that respect, I guess I’m fine.”
​
“So, hold on, these glasses help you read people’s emotions? That’s so cool, it’s like you can read people’s minds! Here, what emotion am I feeling right now?” She holds her face perfectly still, in that way where everything just kind of hangs, no facial muscles engaged. I stare but my glasses just stay blank.
​
“I think you have to, like, actually show some emotion. You can’t just expect it to read your mind.”
​
“Come on, I thought that was the point! What do I have to do, smile like this?” She gives me a big toothy grin, and the word “happy” appears in the corner of my glasses.
​
“Yes, exactly.”
​
“That’s so ridiculous! I mean, how is that supposed to help you? You can’t just go around expecting people to actually show what they’re feeling,” she laughs. Alex, my sister’s wife – well, like my sister, I don’t recognize her at first because of the mask she’s wearing – comes out and sets down a tray of scones, filling the room with the warm aroma of cinnamon.
​
Leah says, “So, I want to hear all about your space adventure!”
​
I’m not sure what it is she actually wants to hear, but I guess what I say next is definitely not it. “I don’t think I would really describe it as an adventure at this point, I mean, space was really exciting at first, like it’s this crazy, incomprehensible, massive thing, and you can finally see it, well maybe not see, but you’re really in it, you know? But then, once you’re there for a while, maybe a few months or so, it starts to become just like everything else – it’s just the space you inhabit, and, yeah, it’s pretty, but, I mean, so is this house, or Whittaker Forest; space isn’t any different.”
​
“Huh,” says Leah, “but isn’t it a little different – I mean, it’s space! It’s just different by definition!”
​
“No, it’s really not.” My head is throbbing again, and I truly don’t feel like explaining myself any further right now, so I’m almost grateful when Alex jumps in with, “So, Charlie! What are your plans now that you’re back? You still need a place now, right, since you had to give up your old one when you left?” She pauses for a moment, then remembers, “Oh, you know what, I think there’s a place for rent on Lake Street, maybe you should give it a look!”
​
“Thanks, but I’m, uh, actually just going to stay with my parents for a while, until I can, you know, get my feet back on the ground, so to speak.” Leah raises her eyebrows at me, presses her lips together, and the word “sad” appears in the corner of my glasses. Sad for me that I’m moving back in with my parents? Sad about my sad play on words? Although I can’t place her exact emotion, I know that what the glasses are telling me is way too simple to be true.
​
After a week of being back on Earth, I visit the lab to check on the soil samples. When I walk in, I see a guy watering the plants with his back to me.
​
“Are you the lab technician?” I ask.
​
“I sure am – give me one moment.” He turns around. “How can I help you?” He flashes a charming smile, and then suddenly his eyebrows shoot up, which my glasses read as “happy”. “Oh hey! Charlie! How’ve you been?” he says.
​
“Do – do I know you?”
​
“Yeah, we were in college together – Peter, remember?” He pauses, then says, “Oh, I forgot, you probably don’t recognize me –”.
​
“Because of the mask?”
​
“Yeah, that. They do make things a bit more confusing, don’t they?”
​
“They really do.” I do remember him now though; even with the mask, I still recognize his voice. I had the biggest crush on him through most of college, but of course he’d never know.
​
“So, how was space?” he asks.
​
“It was fun – well, I actually suffered from a traumatic brain injury, but I guess you could call that fun.”
​
“Oh, that’s terrible! Are you alright?”
​
“It’s really fine. So, how are the tests coming along?” I ask.
​
“Oh yeah, here,” he walks over to a group of plants in the center of the room, and I follow. “So, we’ve divided them by planet, and as you can see, these ones, which are in soil from TO-59, have much rougher leaves – here, feel.” He takes my hand and places it on one of the leaves, and when I look at him our eyes lock. My glasses read “happy”, but I feel like that can’t possibly be all that this is. Something inside me makes me grasp his hand tighter, but the second I do, he pulls away. I look at him, his mouth is open slightly, his brows furrowed, and my glasses now read “sad”. Once again, I know this isn’t right, it’s something far more complex, but what is it? I want so badly to know what he’s feeling in this moment, but even with my fancy glasses, I can’t seem to figure it out. “I’m sorry,” he says, “Um, I think – you know what, my shift is actually over right now, so why don’t you take a look at my notes and the data in that notebook on the table over there, and I’ll, uh, see you around?”
​
“Okay.” I don’t know what I thought would happen – I’m not even sure what did happen, but I felt like, for the first time since I’ve been back on Earth, I finally felt a connection with someone, and now I’ve broken it. I cross over to the table and grab the notebook. It’s open to a page packed with scribbled notes that I can’t fully make out, something about the different soil types and the tests being run on them. I know I probably shouldn’t, but maybe because there’s no one here to stop me, I flip through the notebook – just more illegible handwriting, but then, on the inside cover, I see it – a phone number. I quickly snap a photo of the number and then walk out of the lab.
​
I’ve been sitting in my room – or, I guess I should say, my parent’s guestroom – for almost an hour, gazing through the glass roof at the clear blue sky, searching for signs, or something like that, to tell me what I should do – with Peter’s number, I mean. It occurs to me that it might not even be his number, he could have used someone else’s notebook, but then I realize I’m just being ridiculous. I pull out my phone, type in the number, and press call.
​
After a few agonizing rings, he answers. “Hello?”
​
“Hey, it’s Charlie, listen, I realize that today was, um, weird, and I just wanted to apologize for that. Also, though, you know how I told you I have traumatic brain injury? Well, one of the side effects of that is that I can’t read facial expressions, so I have to wear these glasses to help me with that, but it turns out they only interpret emotions as happy or sad, which I’ve realized is pretty useless, since those words so rarely describe how people are really feeling. I’m just completely lost; I can’t understand people, or, like, connect with them – empathize, that’s the word. When we held hands, though, I felt like, for a second, I could understand you. But then suddenly something changed when you pulled your hand away, and I felt more confused than ever – so, I feel like my only option is to ask, could you just tell me – what was it, or, I guess, is it, that you’re feeling?”
​
Silence.
​
“Is there – did I say something wrong?”
​
And then his voice, “No! No – it’s just, you’re so, straightforward, and honest. So, I feel like I should be honest too; I definitely felt a connection with you. It’s just that, well, I panicked – I got this feeling, not happiness, but something like it, and then I felt so confused and embarrassed about it, so I just panicked and pulled away. I’m so sorry about that though, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you for giving me this opportunity to make myself clear – I really wish people did this kind of thing more regularly, like, just asked about my feelings when they didn’t understand them. You know, emotions can be so confusing sometimes, even for people without traumatic brain injury.”
​
​
Bibliography
“Emotion Recognition Deficits Impede Community Integration after Traumatic Brain Injury.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 30 Aug. 2019, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190830162303.htm.
​
“Some Hyper-Realistic Masks More Believable than Human Faces, Study Suggests.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 21 Nov. 2019, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191121163324.htm.
​
Wall, Mike. “New, Emotionally Intelligent Robot CIMON 2 Heads to Space Station.” Space.com, Space, 5 Dec. 2019, www.space.com/cimon-2-artificial-intelligence-robot-space-station.html.