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Show ROBECK For days on end, you think nothing. For days on end, you think nothing. For days on end, you think nothing. Then small thoughts intrude: "Where is the hammer?" "It is time to pay the bills." "How warm and unusually dry it is for July." These thoughts are only small disturbances, however, in the vast flat sea of your mind. Then one moment the man catches your eye: he has been there all along, but you have not noticed him. The people one lives with are like that, just there: you do not always see them. But now you notice this man: you suddenly see the skin which has grown loose on his arms, the pale brown patches on his hands, an underbrush of coarse, yellowed beard beneath his chin. He has become old. Other thoughts intrude: you examine your own hands, flattening them out on the writing-desk before you. They have the same loose skin, the same telltale brown patches, the knuckles are enlarged and the fingers permanently bent in the same characteristic way. You have become old, too. But if you are old, then it is time. Time. This thought, larger than the rest, invades your consciousness; it surrounds the little thoughts'which have gained toe-holds in you, and establishes itself as a permanent guest. You move to communicate this thought to your mate. "John," you say, and the old man turns to listen to you. "John. It is time." The old man is startled by the large, unexpected thought; he had thought |
