Visiting hours would start in a minute or two.
The old man in the bed was looking up at the ceiling, brooding. His old friend and neighbour would show up soon. He would no doubt ask him how he’s doing, he always does. This time he was going to tell him. He really should tell someone. It might as well be him. Noises came from up the other end of the ward; they were letting them in. A few moments later his neighbour poked his head in the door. With a cheery smile he entered the room and pulled up a chair.
“How are you doing?” he enquired.
The patient took in a long breath and said, “Life just seems to have become too much for me.”
Surprised at this response, his visitor asked, “Why? What’s the matter?”
The old man sighed. “You know, all this stuff we’re supposed to know, all of the things that we are supposed to find out about. We get born knowing none of it, then we begin to learn about things, but we can never get to know it all, no one can!”
His visitor sat in silence, then nodded.
“You take a spoon for instance,” the other went on, “a common enough thing you’d think, but how much is there to know about it. Well, one hell of a lot I can tell you!” He wriggled his shoulders. “Quite apart from what it can be made of, or what it’s used for, or its history and development throughout the ages; apart from all that, just the thing itself; its physical presence, if you like.”
He lay there nodding slowly before going on.
“Most people would be able to tell you that it has a handle. Some would think it was too small to be an actual handle, but of course that’s what it is. I doubt very much that there would be too many people that could tell you that the other end is called a bowl.” He shrugged. “Then, there’d be even fewer that know that the bit in the middle is the stem. The bowl ends at the tip and the handle ends at the terminal, and if that part, the terminal, has anything fancy on it, it’s called a finial. Then there’s the neck, that’s the bit between the bowl and the stem, if this has any additional bits on either side they’re called shoulders. Then, there’s the drop.” He looked across with a wince. “That’s the curved shape underneath the bowl that goes from the bowl to the neck. That part’s called the keel and any fancy shapes that are added there are called heels.”
He turned to his visitor with raised eyebrows.
“You see what I mean? It’s all too much.”
The other went to say something.
The old man went on, “I find myself engulfed in what is an overpowering vastness of knowledge. I’m simply swamped by the sheer enormity of it all.”
He sat thinking for a moment while his visitor remained silent.
The old man flapped his hands. “Then, there’s forks!” he said. “Ha! Forks. Don’t talk to me about forks!”
