Thursday morning at eleven-something.

 Thursday morning at eleven-something.

“That’s what I wanted to know,” I told Uncle Albert as if it were. [The morning begins here.]

And I picked him up to go with me to see Dr. Feight, who said toward the end of our session: “Albert seems to be doing better.”

     I said, “Maybe.”

     He said, “What are you reading lately?” - an odd question, I thought, not something Dr. Feight asks, and not one I had a good answer to.

     I said, “Not much. I don’t read much lately. The news. According to my sources.”

     “That’s it?”

     “Just about.”

     “What do you do instead? I’ve always thought of you as a great reader.”

     “Once, maybe,” I said. “I sit a lot. I write letters I don’t send.”

     “To the newspapers?”

     “No, to people. I write to you sometimes. I write to friends, some alive and some dead.”

     “Do you get letters back? - from the dead, I mean.”

     “Sometimes,” I said. “Usually.”

     “Mmmm,” he said, meaning go on. So, I said:

Orwell by m ball

     “The only thing of any worth I’ve read recently was the essay by George Orwell on Tolstoy and Shakespeare, ‘Lear, Tolstoy and a Fool,’ I think was the title.”

     “Yes?”

     “I liked it, but I didn’t like it. I’m afraid I’m becoming more of a Tolstoy and less of a Shakespeare. Not that I’m either.”

     “Meaning?”

     “You know the essay, right?” I said because he would; and he nodded. “I want the world to be simpler, to conform to my notions of it, to reward me for right-thinking, even if my right-thinking goes against it, the world. Then, I don’t enjoy messes, or messiness, as I once did.” I waited for a minute, maybe two. He didn’t say anything more.

“I wish I did,” I said. Then, the session was over.

09.08.18