Yoadrian Escobar was one of the first Coles to find a pair of the amazing glasses. From the moment he put them on, he wanted nothing more in the world than to never take them off. Which is quite understandable--for the Haights were all about the intensity of experience. The specially designed rose tint on the sunglasses made the most desolate god forsaken planets come alive with ecstatic clarity.
And the Haights needed all the ecstasy they could muster when they visited Cole Potential. For unlike Haight Ashbury, which existed in a universe with an almost infinite number of dimensions, the Kingdom of Cole Potential contained only two dimensions: length and width. There was no depth anywhere to be found. Adding to its prosaic reality was a rigid socialism enforced by their benevolent Queen, Poo the 12th, who promulgated that every Cole receive a uniform distribution of wealth, education, food, clothing, and housing. As a result, each bungalow in Cole Potential, including the Queen's residence, was a one room dwelling with a mud floor and stucco walls. The Coles all wore a standard green rigidly constructed one piece tunic made of kelp that in more bacchanalian times would have been called a toga. The usual dinner for each citizen consisted of lentils and fish. Overall, the good citizens of Cole Potential lived a hard scrabble life working either as a fisherman or farmer.
Needless to say, the Haights quickly discovered that Cole Potential was not as advertised in their travel brochures. Even with their rose colored glasses, the consensus was that Cole Potential was a bad trip. They hastily exited the planet. In their departure, they left their sunglasses. For the Haights also had a thing about littering. Even the Haight Indian with a teary eye seen in their commercials could not deter their natural propensity to litter. But this story, as we shall see, is not about the Haights.
When Yoadrian put on the sunglasses, his mind expanded like a slinky tied to a rocketship. What had been two dimensions became 20 in a prismatic kaleidoscope of colors. When the initial shock wore off, he looked around and found all his drab Cole dwellings transformed into exotic palaces. His drab clothing became exotic and silk. The drab Cole women walking on the square were transformed into duplicates of Racquel Welch and/or Ursula Andress. This latter development was not especially drab as the Coles tended to be as universally homely as they were poor.
So what was so bad about a bunch of glasses that gave people the illusion that they lived in different circumstances? The problem was that there were not enough of them. Only 24 pair of sunglasses were found. There was not enough to go around. Jealousy and fights broke out. Fearing that her socialist utopia would be undermined, Queen Poo the 12th had no choice but to step in.....
After we had fun reading the story together, Adrian picked up on several details he missed on the first reading. The most important was the name Yoadrian, which now sounded more familiar and reminded him of someone he knew.
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