Psychopathology
I watched an elderly woman patient helping the orderly to serve the afternoon tea … She began to stare at the bobbing liquid, then stepped forward and carefully inverted the brimming cup in her hand. The hot liquid dripped everywhere in a terrible mess, and the orderly screamed: “Doreen, why did you do that?”, to which Doreen matter-of-factly replied: “Jesus told me to.” … I like to think that what really impelled her was a sense of the intolerable contrast between the infinitely plastic liquid in her hand and the infinitely hard geometery of the table, followed by the revelation that she could resolve these opposites in a very simple and original way.
– J.G. Ballard
Atrocity Exhibition, 1990
Related: J.G. Ballard On Writing
March 19, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Hey, what a co-inky-dink—I spoke to a retirement community today, on being a writer and on keeping a journal. Our lunch was indeed infintely plastic as well.
Lunch: a pot of coffee on the table, like the ones at I-Hop. Creamed spinach and something called a chicken dish that was simply soggy cut-up pieces. Rolls without butter—butter is a special request. Something I didn’t recognize, also very soft. And some kind of Kool-Aid lemonade in a pitcher. I could think of no way to respond. Wait: I really wanted a an old fashioned. That was my way to resolve opposites in my own original way..
March 19, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Joseph, I could smell the moth balls on the ladies and the mold on the creamed spinach.