Sunday, February 26, 2006
In
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Jean-Dominique Bauby is almost fully paralyzed save for the ability to blink his left eye. It is through this that me manages to sustain contact with the outside world. His friends construct a specially designed alphabet board, one where the most commonly used alphabets in french are placed in front, and then painstakingly read out letter by letter until Jean stops them with a wink. It goes on until he forms whole words. Sentences. The stuff of everyday conversation, but with oh so much effort.
Jean describes his visitors' efforts at conversations. Nervous ones tend to go too fast and miss his blinks. Thorough, meticulous people make for laborious work, but Jean is seldom misunderstood. Then there are those who, in response to a long and effortful "how are you" or similar, answer with a bland "fine" and leave it at that, and the ball is back in Jean's court.
It takes him that much effort to speak, and would cost the other party so little to try a little harder to contribute to the conversation. If I was Jean I'd be going crazy. I'd feel like I was speaking to the most unfeeling of brick walls ever.
And that's what its like now. I hate the way you dismiss me, the way you brush aside things I say with the most perfunctory replies. I m trying to tell you something, and you don't listen.
You don't even see how hard it is for me to speak, and you walk out of the door ignoring my presence and leaving me cold.
did you even realize that?
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