and then what
I was sitting at the cafe today, trying to work on my book, when an elderly couple sat down next to me. I’d heard their loud conversation as they came up the stairs, but most of the old people there speak loudly.
Once they sat down, the woman began to wear the man down with a long, withering nagging session. It wasn’t just me, either; I’d bet most of the people in the room were worn down by it after just a short time. “You’ve got high blood sugar, high cholesterol,” she told him. “And you think you can work? You could die at any time, and then what?” Not a lot of it made sense as I didn’t know the background to the conversation, but the nagging, condescending tone of the woman grated. How could this man have put up with this for so many years? I wondered. Perhaps he just didn’t want to upset her and never told her the secrets in his heart, or perhaps he had just revealed them to her, expecting, hoping against hope, that maybe this time she would reveal some amount of compassion and sympathy for his plight. Either way, he was wrong. Did she know what she was doing to him, what she’d been doing all those years? But he could leave at any time, right? Yet for some reason it had become a choice between not being able to live without her and barely living with her.
I couldn’t keep working. I had to leave, lest the heaping pile of NO YOU CAN’T smother me as well as the rest of the room. It was a gray day outside, but I needed the fresh air.
The book is coming along fairly well, by the way; I’m over 80% done with this revision, and the word count is comfortably over 90,000. The last sections need more work than the earlier parts, however, so it’s taking more time and effort.
I walked over to the camera street instead of taking the MRT to my job in the afternoon like I usually do, trying to get the old woman’s soul-destroying tune out of my head. I was looking at prices of Leica M adapters for my GF1, but I was surprised to find a lens I’d been hankering after for months, just arrived today.
I didn’t buy it. Maybe the old woman was right. What a frightening thought.
I can completely and totally empathize with the guy.
Comment by Brian Q. Webb — April 17, 2010 @ 2:53 pm
As can I.
Comment by Poagao — April 17, 2010 @ 3:53 pm
I wish you’d send me the book.
Comment by Prince Roy — April 21, 2010 @ 5:31 pm
I will, you can proofread it for me after I’m done with this revision.
Comment by Poagao — April 21, 2010 @ 5:39 pm
Thank goodness you could up and leave.
What lens are you hinting at, I wonder? I recently got the 20mm 1.7 and it’s blown my mind away.
Have you read this btw?:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/apr/18/street-photography-privacy-surveillance
Comment by persimmonous — April 26, 2010 @ 7:59 pm
It was the new Olympus m43 9-18mm, and I did get it as well as a Leica M adapter a few days ago.
As to the article, yes, I saw it. Interesting and a little scary how so-called street photography has developed in recent years.
Comment by Poagao — April 26, 2010 @ 9:30 pm