(urth) Short Story 44: Continuing Westward

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>On 8/31/2012 4:47 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> On 8/31/2012 2:53 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>>> From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com>
>>>> Continuing Westward
>> 
>>>> though many of them seem somewhat deformed or blind in one eye (probably from an irradiated apocalyptic fall out, which has not actually affected these people, who never change much no matter how much the world changes).
>>> 
>>> I find it hard to see how radiation could make a lot of people blind in /one/ eye.
>> 
>> The same way smoking can ruin one of your lungs.

Cancer?

Figuring out whether known radiation is likely to cause blindness in one eye would be too much work for me right now.  We can always imagine unknown radiation, but then we can always imagine unknown genetic or other diseases, too.

>>People with two bad lungs die and are not observed; the wogs
>> with two blind eyes die for lack of care or stay indoors for safety and are not observed. People with one good
>> lungand one good eye can still be seen going about their impaired business.
>
>I was about to respond with something similar. Superficially, people seem to get by; behind what the characters themselves see (which is not much), there's probably a lot of death. It felt like natural selection in progress to me but of course blind people would not be out and about unless they are used to it. They might not often be blind from birth.
...

These are out and about.  "Between shawl and veil their [the women's] eyes looked huge and very dark, but I noticed that many were blind, or blind in one eye."
 
>>>> (the children are described as thin or bow-bellied and generally unhealthy looking)
>>> 
>>> Thin or bow-bellied means starving.
>> 
>> There's also malnutrition issues that can make the child potbellied, bowing outward.
>
>Kwashiorkor.


Yes, that's what I meant.  Sorry not to make it clear.  Also, I suppose kwashiorkor isn't caused by starvation, technically.

By the way, the narrator uses the originally American word "dohicky" as well as the British "thingummy".  In that case I suppose we can't be sure whether the girl's vest means the British sense (a sleeveless undershirt) or the American sense.

Jerry Friedman