Friday, May 04, 2007
A sore point
The most macabre thing ever to take place in one of my lessons: on my first day back from K2 I had a lesson with a man dubbed "The Elf." The Elf is a bit of a chronic case, but has the saving grace of being a Kyushu-jin, which provided me with fertile grounds for conversation.
Sure enough, the Elf was happy enough to banter about Kyushu, he was relaxed, urbane, chatty and all seemed to be going well. We spent the first ten minutes gassing about K2, then I asked him what he'd been up to during Golden Week. He replied that he'd been to hospital every day, added that he'd had the top joint of his finger removed after it had been trapped in machinery at the factory, then produced his hand from under the desk for inspection; swathed in bandages and the size of a football.
How dark, I thought. I hadn't realised that he'd been keeping his hand out of sight.
Sure enough, the Elf was happy enough to banter about Kyushu, he was relaxed, urbane, chatty and all seemed to be going well. We spent the first ten minutes gassing about K2, then I asked him what he'd been up to during Golden Week. He replied that he'd been to hospital every day, added that he'd had the top joint of his finger removed after it had been trapped in machinery at the factory, then produced his hand from under the desk for inspection; swathed in bandages and the size of a football.
How dark, I thought. I hadn't realised that he'd been keeping his hand out of sight.
Labels: MOMENTS
