How Do We Learn Words?

Not long ago I was lucky enough to spend the day with a little girl who I adore. She is all of fifteen months old but before anyone decides to attribute my strenuous sensation to the realm of the innocent, I would remind all how the young can teach us about our own nature of knowledge. The reason for this is because, though we are all born into the middle of a certain kind of knowledge without the benefit of a starting point, as it were, with small children we can at least get a glimpse of the very germination of it as it slowly sparks from a consciousness that is a sponge though it is unaware of it's true power to soak up a world which it really has no specific knowledge in understanding.

What I'm trying to get at here is just how we think a child learns words. It is tempting to think that a child learns through us, the adults, as we place a kind of hypothetical sign on words that the child merely recognizes and learns by rote. The child learns different words for different "things". This can extend to people even. A child might learn that a certain person is called "Johnny" and we then like to think that he differentiates Johnny from other people and things the way he might differentiate a chair (when she learns the word) from other objects not the chair. He might learn that "Johnny" is different than his brother "Jimmy" though there is a family resemblance. She will not mistake one from the other unless she is confused about who is who. If we think of Johnny and Jimmy as "objects", we also tend to think the child has learned a way of placing monikers on things that differentiate them from other things.

Yet when I spent my day with my "philosopher-child", I learned that there is world that is being perceived beyond the mere pointing to objects as a learning tool. I have hitherto mentioned the calling of names of two brothers as a way of pointing to things being named so as not to be mistaken for the other. Keeping this in mind, I was struck that when I held up a strand of her hair and I asked her what it was, she immediately called it, in her own way, "Hair!" It would seem that I have taught her a word for an object. But when I then lifted a strand of my own hair and asked her what that was, she also remarked "hair!" On the face of things, this may seem unremarkable but keeping in mind our analogy of the brothers, it is important to point out that I taught her the word for one object and she named the said object. How is it then that when I pointed, or rather, lifted my own hair, another object technically speaking, she was able to call it by the same name? Of course, the most tempting thing to say is that she "saw similarities". However, keeping in mind the simple act of teaching a child the word for hair as a simple sign of pointing and naming, the question occurs as to just how the child learned what the "similarities" are in the scheme of things.

Are we supposed to believe that a child must be taught through the simple naming of objects yet is somehow supposed to innately understand a more complex concept like "seeming the same". The answer might be yes. The problem here is just the idea that we point and the child mechanically learns as if by rote. But that would mean that when we point to a pencil and call it a pencil, a child might understand we mean we are saying this is "hard" or this is "wood" or this is "long". What are we doing when we teach a child a term for "hot"? I may turn on a stove and point to the fire and say "this is hot" but how might the child might mistake this for "fire" or "blue" or "triangular" as I've really only pointed to an object?

The fact is that a child, when learning a word, is also witnessing the world beyond just the placing of monikers on an object. "Hot" after all (like "similarity") is not an object but a feature of an object. The child learns the word, true,  but she also observes through conscious and subconscious living, that people burn themselves on the fire, and another heats themselves with the fire, and another still may cook food on the fire. So that while we think we've taught them a word, they have in fact witnessed many uses for the word "fire" by a kind of self-knowledge through a kind of rhizomial learning through living, while still learning that an object itself is called "fire." I think this is where we might demarcate the concepts of 'meaning' and of 'use.'  We give words meaning but we do this through their use.

What this tells us further is that it is a shared experience.   To understand this collectively, we know there are rules to be followed and these rules can be explained.  This is simple enough, but we also know we come to a point where our spade is turned and we can dig no more; there is a point in human language and meaning when the rules cannot be explained. I can explain the child learning the word "hair" by pointing to a strand of hair but I do not explain how the same word is to be used in pointing to anothers' hair, a "different" object. Again, saying she saw similarities still begs the question whether this child really knows exactly what the concept of "similarity" is. To my knowledge, she never used the word herself. She is, after all, struggling with the simple, ostensive definition of the word "hair" never mind the more ephemeral concepts of our language. Maybe there is an "a priori" sense that presupposes learning apart from the rules governed by the man-made world. Again, rules can be explained for things but there is a point where following rules becomes more ambiguous, especially when learning language.

One can ask a person, when they've read sentences on a piece of paper, how they knew to do it correctly and their answer might be that "I learned the rules of the ABC's" or "I learned the rules of grammar". But this still does not answer just what rules were necessary to learn the ABC's. What rules were grasped to learn that? What rules were followed for that? A simple answer might be just a general consensus but this only points to language as being innate no matter what rules we apply to it.

My little girl is not just mechanically learning words to put with an object. She is living and breathing these words and finding, within her little but potent mind, the many USES that all words have in our collective expressiveness. But how she computes these USES is the all too mysterious and all too human mystery shared by all.

Metaphors and Misuse

What is it we consider non-sense?
Consider two propositions:

1. God sees everything. 
2. The security system in the lobby of the building sees everything.

Though the subjects of these two propositions are distinctly different, the form each sentence takes is deceivingly alike. Each makes a claim on the subject that, at first glance, seem the same though I would venture to guess that the form changes drastically when we take in the particular gravity of each subject on its own. Let's see which of the two sentences may contain what we consider sense while at the same time delve to consider whether one or both (or neither) may contain no sense, that is, in the real sense of the term non-sense. The structure is all important but as we shall see, the subject will be a deciding factor in weeding out whether either the former or the latter contains real growth in the flower bed of our language.
First, I must point out exactly what I mean by non-sense. It’s not an accident that I hyphenate the words. I do want to distinguish it from the very concept of what we consider the table-top variety of the everyday definition of nonsense. I do not use the word as synonymous with ‘silliness or ‘ridiculousness’, as we might with nonsense. Rather, what I mean here is what the philosophical movement of logical positivists meant in trying to discuss what in thought and language had meaning and what did not. That is, something that, when looked at carefully, really carries no sense. Some things just really carry no sense. If we state something like, “It is not raining outside,” this proposition may or may not parallel reality. If the fact in the world is that it is actually raining outside, it’s safe to say that the proposition is nonsense. It’s ridiculous but only in the sense that we have a reality that we can then compare to our statement. The statement is logical but only in the sense that it can be right or wrong. However, if we were to use a tautology and say something like, “It is either raining or not raining outside”, we encounter a problem. This statement does not make sense but neither is it nonsense. It really lacks sense because it lacks any possibility of being compared to reality. This is the rub. When we use language we are in fact mirroring a reality that seems to be objective beyond our own thoughts.
And because language is as rich and varied as it is, there are times when we cannot distinguish the silly from the unutterable. 
To say that "God sees everything", it must be explained to us what we mean when we utter such a proposition and that explanation ought to come in a simple look at the language. We have a simple noun/verb postulate here. It might be smart here to look at the noun first. Presuming everyone entering the discussion understands (loosely) what we mean by God, that is an omniscient, always-present deity in the sky, we then have to understand what we mean when we say he "sees". This brings us to our verb. Seeing or having a visual field is a human function that takes works as a matter of the "hardware" in our eyes that are attached, and function with, the neurons of the brain. However, as is natural in our language, we have turned this into many different ways manners of speaking that use the literal use of "seeing" as a kind of anchor. For example, when we say we see with the "mind's eye" or "I can see the future", or even as a matter of understanding when we simply reply "I see", to something we’ve understood. We are using language creatively to illustrate other ways of speaking that have a loose connection with the literal. But it is this loose connection with the literal that the many uses can function as a matter of sense.
When we want to describe God "seeing", we are forced to explain it in anthropological terms naturally from a human point of view. What do we say when we propose God sees everything? Well, initially I want to ask, with what? Does he have eyes? Eyes have a function but they are also material things. We thought this God was invisible. Invisible material? Does he see the way we do? Does he have perspective? Can things obscure his vision? Does he have a blind spot? (The last two hypothetical questions also point out a problem with perfection or, more to the point, a certain lacking). The point here is that it is very difficult to have a certain ideal of a perfect being as a subject then confer on him/her certain human traits. We come up against a wall as to how a theistic perceiver of all things behaves or even just exists with certain finite attributes like "seeing". It is also in the nature of some verbs to be misunderstood. We can point to someone ‘running’ but can we point to someone ‘seeing’ or even ‘thinking’ (it’s much too difficult to say that someone is thinking hard simply because she has furrowed her brow. Someone could be thinking even harder without furrowing their brow). So how do we then scale this wall? We do not. We actually hurdle it in one giant leap by calling it a METAPHOR. Herein lies a problem. For in order for a metaphor to work we must already understand the original statement or idea. And here, in my view, is where much of the confusion begins: For a metaphor to be understood, the metaphor must stand for the original. That is that the metaphor must have the capability of being dropped so that the literal sense can then be understood.
Unfortunately, metaphors have sort of morphed into the same mistakes as when people rely on the subjectivity of opinion. It has become fashionable to say that they are arbitrary. But this is not the case. If I say my lover has rose petals for lips, I am pretty well understood to mean that her lips are as appealing as rose petals. Certainly, if I went to another culture where rose petals were considered poisonous then my metaphor has not fallen flat. It has, infact, just changed it's meaning. My lovers lips to that culture now becomes one which is negative or dangerous. But the metaphor still stands. Both the literal ideas of 'dangerous' and appealing' are understand even when the metaphor is dropped. One thing this culture would understand is what I mean by 'appealing' or positive and just replace the metaphor with something they understand. Certainly different things can be appealing but there is at least a general understanding of the word. If I say I mean it in the sense of being ‘appealing’, I am then understood. This is the same with ‘seeing’. So if we get the idea of the metaphor, it seems to be that it is our subject it is suppose to stand for that is flawed. Is the idea of the security camera flawed? If I were to say "The security camera sees everything", I can mean that to say that there is a certain camera (like an eye) that is set up in the lobby to capture images. Capturing images is important here because in a sense, this is exactly what the human eye captures when looking at a visual field. The security cameras "eye" is being used a metaphor for "seeing" in the literal human sense. In this case, if someone misunderstood what I meant by the metaphor of the security camera, I can then drop it so that it may be understood in the way meant while also explaining the metaphor. Both the metaphor and the literal now have sense.
But this metaphor hinges on the word ‘everything’. When we say ‘everything’ here, we are presumed to mean everything that happens within it’s purview of the confines of the lobby. So we have another literal sense that another metaphor stands in for. We can explain the ‘seeing’ and the ‘everything’. But when we say "God sees everything" as a metaphor and we then drop the metaphor, we become again mired in the original problem of what it is that God is doing when he is "seeing". We do not seem to have the luxury that we have with the security camera. We are back to answering the unanswerable question about God's sight that forced us to just call it a metaphor in the first place. It all becomes circular, like a snake eating its own tail. The metaphor does not do enough to explain because it never had anything itself to stand for in the first place. It is like a house with no foundation; something utterly absurd. In this way, the proposition lacks sense. It is non-sense.
When we do not have a foundation for a metaphor to stand upon the metaphor crumbles to the ground in a heap of non-sensical rubble. And when these things cannot be explained they can neither be spoken about. This, I believe, is what the famous philosopher, Wittgenstein meant when he famously said that “what we cannot speak of must be passed over in silence”. The problem of course, is that we rarely want to pass over in silence. We then proceed to hit our head against the wall or else end the argument with a scream. We want desperately to transcend certain of our own attributes but we are bounded by the world that is objective reality. And anything outside of our world either carries no sense or must be passed over in reverent silence.
We are beings that go to the end of the universe and are happy to find a wall but then suffer for the thought that our imagination tells us there is something beyond the wall.
It hasn't escaped me either that I have used a wall as a long, protracted metaphor but I only hope it makes sense.

The Lovely Oddness of Pushing a Bed, a Model T, and a Piano Up Ben Nevis

Above the minion hills of Caledonia,
Crowned by fog and robed by dewy dew,
Sits a green-brown king that's waiting for ya,
Benevolent wet welcoming for the few.

And there were a few who, to pay tribute to,
And place some jewels in the crown of the king,
Held fast his soil, scaled through the robe of dew,
To adorn upon his head peculiar things.

Some creative set set forth on steep ascent 
Up the Caledonian hill where it's said
They planned hard all the way as they went.
This plan, understand, it included a bed

Pulled through robed dew and thick whiskey peat.
And as whiskey'ed dreams cause one to snore aloud,
They probably did between soggy sheets,
Surrounded by a webby web of clouds. 

Yet others, it's said again, as if to top these,
Sought to push a Model T up the kings side,
Thick coats of dew and peat under old wheels,
Arguably a most unusual drive

That demanded sheer and original will.
For to haul up a combustioning engine
Over such steeply steep and stormy hills
Begs: Did they merely drive it down again?

Once more at the top of his peated plaid pate,
Again at the apex of such kingly ground,
Was seen a piano as if found by fate,
A heap of a thing mysteriously bound

And buried within. One wants to imagine,
When once in a piece, they played what all crave;
Rousing renditions heard from the glens,
And cities, and towns, of Scotland the Brave!

You! All of you showed strange reverence
Celebrated in unusual ways:
Things scaled in a country, a proud land whence
Greatness is expressed best in peculiar praise.

So, my madly mad ole Scottish brethren,
Who let your irreverent flags unfurl!
I dream those whiskey'ed dreams of when
You let them wave atop that green-brown world!

Little Ben

Little Ben is easily confused with a same

Little zen but that’s because his body’s small

And because the little zen he has contained

Within him stands straight and just as tall.

Those who are as worldly and as wise

Don’t find it hard to wonder between the two

As when we ponder a bright set of eyes

And the joyfulness found in them. Wide and china blue,

His wily saucer eyes look up and down

Then left to right as he attempts to gauge the length

Of the world so that he might know just how

To bend some elbowed arms in a cradled strength

And wrap her in embrace. But with the upturned

Corners of his smile he pushes her away.

But this is so he can see clear the joy she's earned.

He’ll always have his homing beam lest she feel astray.

Little Ben gives a playful push and the world comes

Swinging back. And the swinging forth brings

Another push and the world and he are one.

He has given her as a gift, lively loving wings.

But remember, Ben, on life’s playground, always

Keep her close. If she knows enough you are a friend

She ought to do the same. So let her swing but raise

A hand so she too gives wing to you and your budding zen.

Graveyard of the Gods

The bars of the cemetery gates were

Majestic, thin, archaic and crooked

Like the half outstretched fingers of

Death himself.  Though they pointed upwards

Towards the glassy orb in the sky,

I went in.  Like rotten teeth, the gravestones

Protruded from their place at unequal

Distances each to each; some were long,

Some short, askew or straight, and all chipped at

The edges showing age. Only the worship-less

Moon gave them a white that was not there. 

And though the whole decrepit mouth stank

As the vapours of the earth enwrapped the

Chalky slabs, I, like one whose intuitive

Manners precedes action, didn’t flinch. 

I was in the graveyard of all the gods

And my plan was clear. With spade in hand

I pierced some soil to resurrect those

Oft forgotten bones that lay resting

Under some weighty years of progressive

Dirt, grave layers set in loose lumps of

Man’s knowledge tramped down at a time.

But some days they are surely worthy of

Resurrection.  The first I dug was new.

He still held flesh to bone that laboured time

Had not undone and a white beard still shone

Like wispy clouds or ripped cotton clinging

To fossiled flesh (the archetypal beard,

I thought!).  I propped him upon a slab and,

With makeshift lines, drew upon the dirt some

Crude square forms for chess.  The rocks and

Stones we placed as kings and queens, castles and

Horses.  “The pawns are essential,” I said

With a nervous laugh but the sockets where

Once was housed omniscient eyes were now just

The collapsed space of infinite black; holes

Where, If looked intently, shown an image of

Myself in a pall of deathly moonlight white.

We played our game and sometimes stopped to laugh

At the wily ways of men (and women)

And all the myriad ways that chance can

Hope upon a move. And when I came to

Realize I made his moves and mine did

I feel the heavy haze of the moon’s stare

In a heatless glare that seared shame.

The second was of a different kind.  The

Hips were in a convex curve shone wide

That spoke to the feminine feature in

Her skeletal remains; crescent hips like

The moons childhood before the steady

Motion of times waves made it full.  But they

Arched like the bended bow that launches all

The arrows that can be blamed on love.  I took

Her in embrace and wrapped an arm around

A wide waist as we danced among the stars.

Her ecru arm I crossed over my own

Boned shoulder where, from a lifeless wrist,

Waved a jostling hand full of mock life that did

Sway to and fro with each merry step like

The puppet sans the strings.  Under the night

Sky I swept her round and round through swirls

Of dirt as we sometimes threw a head above

To glimpse the swirls of the moons aspect in

Unearthly spirals like ghosts on the wing.

We danced and danced until her celestial

Bones collapsed upon my own, a crumple

Of life not really there.   The love I held

 I realized then was contained in my own

Bones that emanated spirit and the movement

Of us both.  Then did I see I was the

One who caused that hand to swing and sway with

The dance while the heavy haze of the moon’s

Stare in a heatless glare seared shame. The third

And last I rose from the ground.  I propped his

Starved skull skyward so we might in concert

Contemplate the stars.  We peered at the spray

Of sprinkled lights that blinked in reverence

Around the mother moon that shined like a

Progenitor never out of sight.  I

Grasped a pensive moment to explain how some

Lights in the sky had nearly died when he

Was but an infant when he had an infant’s mind

And an infant’s eye to tell what he might see.

I said, as if a student who dared show

What he knew, such light has leapt across the

Bounds of time to spy upon us now, you

And I, as if to come back from the dead

And see us wonder why.  He only stared.

The slithering snake, like sins surprise, came

Round the cavernous reach of his eye, peered

A hastate head, and hissed.  I left those bones

To be found.  Let another decide if

They are fit to hide again.  Toward the

Gate I made my way and in a flourished

Flight.  If old bones have their use then I will

Shave mine own down to a point to write

A name.  The bars of the cemetery

Gates pointed up to infinite abyss.

There the hallowed moon patiently sits

Where she does not blink nor does she see.

Sate This, Not That

Wrap your arms around and crown my head

As a memory might with the self, sought deep,

For thoughts felt near, like the precious bed

That, unlike love, lies here within our reach.

Take your arms from my head and grasp,

With hands, this nubile neck that feigns submit,

Like a ladies nape to a gaudy clasp,

And hang on me that bejeweled  kiss.

Bracelet my wrists and fling me on the bed

And then, with fast flicks of the tongue in swirls,

Sing your song on felt flesh from hoof to head

And adorn with spit and sweat long beads of pearls.

Do all of this on passions wing and do it well.

Fly the pair of us to the carnal spot

Then come to where the center holds in a swell.

Then release lust's grip, come down, then stop.

But now you ask to touch this mean thing down deep?

Now you seek to penetrate with eyes that care?

Believe that all that is found inward will be cheap

So I ask you, kindly, do not to touch me there.

God! Fight this desire for treasure inside!

There is where the man is spare and plain, alone!

A meandering map of love as your guide

Will find a shineless thing, and unadorned!

So this, my love, is the predicament we're in;

That you look for riches that are not there.

The best, my love, would be to stick to skin

And leave all else dull, austere, and deathly bare.

Pieta: A Short Story

If the ALEWIFE ever had life it was dead now. It was like walking into a damaged lung. It was a dark and dingy crevice stained in nicotine. The owner of this ‘lung’ had pretensions of making his bar a respectable place but his patrons were sure to make him fail. The dirty, amber light made the walls heave like a large man in mid-July which must have caused the slow peeling off of the rancid wallpaper, itself, 20 years out of style. It was as if the wall were doing it a favour. It was a prison and, like most of them, sadly occupied.
The man made his way into the bar with a sense of self-consciousness written all over his puffy, ruddy face. He had been on the wagon a full six months to this particular day so he felt a heavy conspicuousness even in his attempt to keep a low profile. If he was even seen briefly it would raise suspicions. But no worries with this crowd. Hardly a head rose from the drinks. All the same, he knew it was important not to be seen drinking vast quantities these days. There was a whole new generation that frowned on such a thing. They even had a name for it: Alcoholism. But despite his attempt at stealth, this was the seventh bar he had patronized today. 
His first stop this Sunday was ‘Our Lady of Immaculate Grace’ where he took a sip of the communion wine. Yes. A sip of the sacred blood of the Redeemer reinvigorated a thirst that he managed to stave off for a full half a year. He never did take the body. At fifty, he was a man for whom life had given up on because he had given up on it. He kept up appearances, putting on the brave face to strangers and non-strangers alike but this was less hiding pain than it was a poor actors attempt at pretending it was not there. Even on those days when he managed to muster an articulation of his pain, as he had with his Priest this morning, he never heard the advice because he was already in a hazy daydream at the bottom of a glass. Looking through the bottle of a glass was a fantastical thing for him. He could feel the booze run through his veins the way spilled water in the dessert finds the sun-cracked arteries of scorched earth and rushes to fill them. As the booze worked the magic, he would peer from the bottle of the glass reveling in his world made softer and rosier by the optic of the thick glass. 
No lesson was ever absorbed. But his body was absorbing something, right then and there on the patched and peeled cushion of the barstool as he finished his last few drinks. These were the ones that gave him the courage to go home. He headed out the door into the harsh spotlight of the sun and stumbled on his way. It was a stumble only the inebriated can make. Despite the manner that seemed to scream that all energy of thought was put in to it, his gait was one where his torso seemed to precede his legs whereby his legs, like small children with a parent, proceeded to catch up to the rest of the body. He looked like a pathetic martyr carrying a cross too heavy to bear. But rather than a stigmata on the palms, this afflicted thing that so sacrificed himself for the bottle, was stigmatized with newly healed slashes right on the underside of both wrists. 
The wife was taking a bath. Six months older than he, she was up to her breasts in bubbles and looked a vision. She piled her dry hair high on her head like a beautiful nest which showed all of her slight, heart-shaped jaw line and swan-like neck. There was the faintest sort of blue-grey vein running up the side of the neck that was appealing. One would not have wished it anymore prominent or any fainter. She had a working-class beauty but it was beauty nonetheless. Despite her grace, it seemed obvious this was a woman for whom the only pampering life granted her was this bath. The man, wholly inebriated, barged in, like most drunks, with good intent, but none of the grace to match. His eyes went straight to the vein in her neck. 
“Jesus Christ, I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed at once. 
The jig was up the moment he turned the corner of the bath door. 
“Be-Be-Believe what? How are ya?” he asked cheerfully in that poor actors way of his. 
“Did you not think it would be this obvious?” she asked incredulously. 
”What?....But…I’m” 
“Drunk!” she screamed. It was better to finish the sentence for him. The actor sometimes had to have his lines fed to him. 
“I only had a few” 
“Believe what? Believe what? Oh! Only that I’m sitting here with the lovely scents of petunia and now you walk in and it all of a sudden smells like a fucking petroleum factory in here!” 
The lies of a drunk. This was not necessarily by deceptive design. He was in no state to even be that clever. He was lying but so many unformed thoughts swam around in his booze soaked head that it was hard for him to make any sense of what he could get away with. Subtlety was dead. Drunkenness does not make you lie. It just makes you incapable of the cunningness necessary to know what will work. It was an unfair fight and she knew it. But possibly due to the fact that nakedness can make a person feel vulnerable, there was something in her that would not hesitate to go in for the kill if she needed to. For a moment or so there was silence. But the silence only made him feel awkward and he started to feel the same feeling when he walked into the bar. A guilty sadness welled up like thick air. He searched for something to prove well-meaning but all he gave her was a confusing non-sequitar. 
“Lo-Lo-Look. We’re both in-in-in the same boat”, he stammered sadly. 
This wasn’t washing with her. She pounced. 
“Same boat?” she said quietly with a mock smile. “Same boat?” 
Then she screamed with intent. “The only boat we’ve shared is this fucking bath!” 
She sank back down again and quieted her voice. She did add in a whisper, “Only not as often.”
He missed it anyway but she felt a shiver of guilt. 
His own self-pity rose to a crescendo. He attempted to raise his voice. 
“You don’t gotta be sarcastic”, he whimpered, “I’m trying”. 
He then stumbled past the door. She stopped the discussion there. He had tried for six months. Only there were a handful of six month failures. She thought of all the ways he might get help all the times he desperately needed it but he always tried it alone. So very alone. 
She wrapped herself in her terrycloth robe hiding the once subtle vein that now throbbed with intensity. It was no longer as beautiful because it was no longer easy to miss. She left the bathroom a little shortly after and found her husband, a crumpled wreck on the couch. His torso was slumped over on the side yet he managed to keep each buttock also planted to the cushions and the soles of his feet flat on the floor. This man just could not seem to keep his body parts congruent with each. Drunks can bend all the wrong ways but never the right way. She was unfazed by the sight. She slowly sauntered to the couch with intentions of making him more comfortable. The anger had already shed away and she was filled with a resigned melancholy. But she was already sympathetic. Before picking his head up, she pulled the church program from his pocket which brought with it a stray bottle cap that fell to the floor with a small ping. She glanced at both of them. She lay the program on it’s side and with slight intent gave the bottlecap a small kick sending it a few feet from where it landed. She then took her husbands head and, with a bit of forced grace, slid herself under it like an overgrown child sliding into a small school desk. His head rested uneasily but unmoving on the side of her thigh. They looked like a modern day “Pieta”. 
She looked like the grieving but resigned Mary under the dead man. She sat like this for many minutes absently stroking his hair as she whispered to herself, 
“Maybe you oughta go alone. Maybe you should just go alone”. 
Then in a strange moment, she slowly started thinking about a picture she saw on the church walls once in her past. It was a painting of the risen Christ with a few of the apostles. The central depiction was the doubting apostle Thomas in slight bemusement sticking his index finger into Christ’s wound on his abdomen, Christ looking on with the gentle intention of alleviating Thomas’s skepticism. Thomas’s finger in the wound resembled a a mother's as she might attempt to extract a foreign object from a child's mouth. She sat with a pondersome look on her face, her brow slightly furrowed, searchingly and longingly, peering straight ahead. As she sat in the rapt contemplation of her own minds musing of the painting, staring nowhere, she was unaware that she was sticking her index finger into her husband’s mouth slowly making him vomit in his own mouth stopping up his breathing.