It wasn't 2002 anymore. The last Eugene remembered himself in, on Earth that is, was at a Stater Bros. next to the entrance of a big freeway. Now he was in the stall of a public restroom. He looks down. He wasn't able to change since 1974. The last complement he remembers involved a random person calling him Napoleon Dynamite. Maybe it was an insult. Anyway, Eugene is in a saturated beige suit with a striped copper and black tie. He felt the top of his head and remembers his beige colored fedora. To his side is a small, black briefcase. It is incredibly light. He opened it and remembered what lay inside of it. One pair of sunglasses. Eugene thinks that maybe this time he would have his answer.
Eugene closes his briefcase and opens the stall. It was already unlocked. He walks out of the restroom, and finds himself in a dirty grocery store. He walks out, expecting someone to ask where he came from, but nobody cares. Outside, Eugene sees large buildings in the distance. He is likely in New York.
He needs to get into the city.
"Taxi! Taxi!" he calls out to a gray car with an orange logo on the side. It reads "RDSHR NOW" and he waits confused at the cryptic message. The car has a sign on top signifying it is a taxi.
The car slows down and pulls up to Eugene. The door opens vertically, startling Eugene at first.
"Well, are ya' gonna hop in er what?"
Eugene steps into the car.
"Where to?"
"Into the city," an uncertain Eugene responds.
"'Course."
The taxi starts for the city.
In the city, Carl walks down the crowded sidewalks of Manhattan. He's making his way back to his apartment. As he stares into his phone, the graphics begin to jitter. Then it crashes and only returns a black screen. Infuriated, he looks around to fixate his eyes on another screen. But an unusual scene twenty feet away catches his attention.
"What do you mean you don't know what I mean?" a taxi driver yells, in a gray and orange cab parked in a lucky space next to the sidewalk.
"I have the money! Just take it!" responds a distressed voice in the same car, in a slightly out-of-town accent.
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"How am I supposed to pay with that?"
"Just get out!"
Carl walks towards the cab. A man in a beige-orange suit crawls out of the cab, and sets one foot on the curb just as the taxi driver floors the gas pedal. He stumbles onto the ground. Nobody cares.
Carl walks up to Eugene.
"What was that?"
Eugene abruptly gets up.
"He wouldn't take my money!" Eugene exclaims, waiving a thin wad of eighty dollars in Carl's face.
"You tried paying with that? Are you serious?"
"He started asking me to pay with coins! Ridiculous!"
"Coins? What the hell are you on about? You've never heard of 'coin' before?"
"What?"
"Real money– whatever. I don't care what you're on right now."
Carl starts walking away. Eugene stands, still puzzled by the whole scene. Then he looks down at his briefcase. He runs towards Carl.
"Hey! Hey you! Boy!" Eugene yells as he's running towards Carl.
Carl looks back. Terrified of the possibility of a New York meth-head chasing him, he starts running for his apartment. He looks back, seeing Eugene raising his briefcase in the air and pointing at it. He looks too sober to be on crack. Carl slows down and Eugene catches up to him.
"Boy, I've got just the thing for you," Eugene tries to pitch his product while catching his breath, "Glasses that show yours and your fellow humans' creations."
Eugene opens his briefcase and shows Carl the unremarkable pair of sunglasses.
"What the hell are you on?"
"Okay. I'll admit I don't know what I'm selling. I've been on this job for decades."
Carl, now unconvinced this man is entirely sober, asks, "Decades? You've been a… salesman for decades?"
"Last I can remember was 1958."
Carl pauses, "Okay, what's your angle? Where's your cameraman?"
"Cameraman? What? Boy, I just need you to put these glasses on!"
"I guess I've got nothing to lose," Carl says, reaching for the glasses, "This ain't coated in 'fent,' is it?"
"I can't understand half the words you're saying, boy."
Carl puts the glasses on.
"Do you see anything out of the ordinary?" Eugene asks, frantic for an answer now.
"That's actually cool. These shades make your vision in black 'n white," Carl says.
"Fascinating. That's what I've been told in 2002."
"So are you on meth or are you a time-traveler?"
"That doesn't matter. I don't know what I am."
Carl looks around in the sunglasses, "Funny, looks like a blackout."
Carl takes the glasses off. Suddenly, he looks very confused. This confusion sparks a newfound hope in Eugene. Perhaps the boy has an answer for him.
"What's the trick? I put the glasses on and all those billboards are off. I take them off and they're all on."
"Fascin–"
"Wait, wait," Carl interjects after he puts the glasses back on, "I see some advertisements. Only a few."
"Take them off! Do you still see them?"
Carl takes the glasses off again, "I still see them. Those aren't going away."
"Which advertisements, boy?"
"Something about an art gallery. But I can only see the paintings."
"Very fascinating," Eugene responds, "Say, what is the year, boy?"
Now fully convinced that the salesman is either a magician or time-traveler, Carl responds "2063."
"Boy, this is the first time in over a century I am beginning to have my answer. May I accompany you for the rest of the day, to try to figure out what the heck those glasses do?"
"You know what. Sure," Carl responds.
Eugene and Carl walk down the sidewalk. Carl wears the glasses to figure out what it all means. He instinctively pulls his phone out of his pocket and tries to turn it on. Finally, it does.
"What's wrong with my phone?" Carl asks himself.
"Is it supposed to do that?"
"It's all black. All I can see is the time."
"You don't see the pink and blue and yellow?"
Carl pauses and takes the glasses off. Now, he can see the screen's background, notifications, and widgets.
"Mister–"
"Eugene."
"Yeah. When I put the glasses on, my phone's screen is dark, except for the time."
"That's fascinating."
Eugene and Carl are now walking up the stairs of an apartment building.
"You know, I'm not sure how I feel letting a complete stranger into my apartment."
"Oh, I under–" Eugene starts, before he hatches a small idea, "look at that bulletin board."
"Yeah? What about–"
"Put your glasses on!"
"Okay–" Carl says as he puts his glasses on, "Woah. Almost all of these posters are blank."
"What can you see?"
"Some kid's dumpy little drawing."
"Fascinating. Maybe the glasses dislike advertisements–" Eugene begins hypothesizing, "No, no, that wouldn't make sense. Back in 2002 I–"
"Hey, Eugene, I've got an idea."
Carl unlocks his apartment door. He walks in and lets Eugene in, and Carl turns his computer on.
"Wow. So this is what computers look like today."
"Yeah, it's cool, isn't it?" Carl asks. With the computer on, he starts typing on the keyboard.
"What are you thinking of doing?" Eugene asks.
Carl sets the sunglasses down on his desk. He pulls up a website. It is called "CREAIT." Very clever.
Carl begins typing. In the website's prompt, he types "Draw me a picture a child would draw."
Miraculously, countless drawings that look to be drawn by a child appear on the screen. A chatbot then responds "I hope these will satisfy! Please ask me if anything seems wrong."
"A machine that draws anything? That seems genius," Eugene says.
"It's creativity made by nobody. It feels wrong but I kinda stopped caring."
Carl picks up the sunglasses and puts them on. Just as he predicted, the screen is barren. What used to be a monitor displaying abstract designs and child drawings, is now a blank white screen with an address bar showing the website's link. The chatbot ceases to exist before Carl's eyes.
Carl, without explanation, gets up and walks out of his apartment. Still wearing the glasses, he walks out of his apartment, at looks anywhere he can. Eugene follows him shortly.
Carl runs down the street, heading for Times Square. He continues looking around, revelling in the blank billboards and empty posters, his eyes viewing the same quantity of meaning they would have without the glasses.
Eugene is running after Carl, confused as this is the first time any one of his clients have had an extraordinary reaction to his product. He calls out to him, but Carl continues running.
Carl arrives at Times Square. He stares at all the screens. What used to carry advertisements and videos created by no one for no one now display nothing. Eugene catches up to Carl.
Grabbing him by the shoulders, Eugene asks, "Boy! You must tell me, what are these sunglasses doing?"
"It's what you pitched to me earlier! I only see what we have created!"
"What? Who've? Huh?"
"You said something! It was like, 'glasses that show my creations and other people's creations.'"
"The motto?"
"Yes! You see, we're all surrounded by creations masquerading as art. I thought art died decades ago."
Eugene tries to interject, but Carl continues.
"See those advertisements? No one made them," Carl turns his phone on and acknowledges its graphics, "No one made this background. These messages are all butchered remains of what people have written."
"You mean that drawing machine made these?" Eugene asks while he looks at the flashing commercials.
"Sure, if that makes things easier for you to understand. No one in those videos are real. These glasses show me only what's real."
Eugene nods, "Well– I believe I have my answer now."
Carl instinctively shakes Eugene's hand, "Whatever you are… wizard, magician, time-traveler, meth-head, I don't care. Thank you."
Eugene pauses, and responds, "You're welcome."
Carl finds himself in front of a bench. He sits on it. Eugene walks away. In the midst of the crowd, he disappears. Carl sits, watching, expecting someone to ask where he went, but nobody cares.