Short Story: The Translucent Sea

◉ Kazemakase Literature Club [The Translucent Sea] Entry

　Those glasses astonished researchers all over the world.

　They were developed by Dr. N, who studies biological vision. By simply wearing the glasses, one could replicate the color perception and visual characteristics of specific animals.
　With dog vision, the number of colors is reduced. With a hawk's, you can see clearly for several kilometers. With a cat's, the scenery emerges even in the dark.
　With expectations for applications in medicine and biology, this invention instantly garnered global attention. However, a phenomenon occurred that even Dr. N had not anticipated.
　It was the sea.
　No matter which animal's vision mode was selected, only the sea became translucent. The surface of the sea became like thin blue glass, and as long as light could reach it, one could see all the way to the seabed dozens of meters below.
　Schools of fish, reefs, coral, and sunken ships. The footage was broadcast around the world, and people cheered.

“Seabed tourism will change.”

“We can find legendary sunken ships.”

　Travel agencies planned tours to experience the translucent sea, and eyewear manufacturers announced the release of a consumer model.
　However, the frenzy did not last long. Because everything humans had sunk became visible as well.
　Wrecked cars, massive amounts of illegally dumped trash, weapons sunk during wars. And countless human remains that had never been discovered before. The news broadcast these images day after day.

“Can it really see things like this too...”

　People who experienced it took off the glasses and never wanted to wear them again.

“That’s enough.”

“I wish I hadn't seen it.”

　The planned consumer model was canceled, and the glasses were relegated to use only by select research institutions.

　Several years later. Before retiring, Dr. N left behind a single report. After years of research, a strange fact had come to light.
　The sea appearing translucent was not an effect created by the glasses; that was the sea's true form. The eyes of animals had simply been seeing the sea as it truly was all along.
　In other words, it was only humans who were different. Humans are equipped with a nature that avoids seeing things they do not want to see.
　And the human brain also has a mechanism that unconsciously corrects information entering from the eyes. In the process of evolution, that correction began to function.

　The final sentence written in the report read as follows.

“The sea has been translucent since ancient times. It was the human eye, evolved to look away from truths we do not wish to see, that made the sea appear blue.”