Here's my third attempt to get something on a Talking Heads theme for my U3A assignment. Thanks to those of you who read my last attempt. I took it off because I thought it wasn't all that appropriate. It was mostly a true story as is this one. I've gone over the 1000 word maximum, but I can shave a few of the details off if I decide to submit it.

I haven’t thought about you for ages. It was a word in a blog that I read yesterday that brought you to my mind. I wonder where you are now, and if you are alive, and if you are happy - if you ever were happy.

I met you back in 1964 when you were doing your master’s at North Dakota State University - and I was working on my degree. And not only was I studying, but I was doing odd jobs to make enough money to pay my way. That’s where you came into it. You were my employer.

When I think back to what you looked like, it is quite clear in my mind. You were fairly short, and quite plump, and you always wore white blouses and patterned skirts and a cardigan - almost like a uniform You had blond hair, I think, and I have the feeling it was curly - but you wore it in a very simple style - perhaps you wore a barette to keep it out of your eyes. I think maybe your eyes were blue, but the main thing one noticed about them was that they didn’t work together. One was looking to the right and one to the left, because, of course, they weren't looking at all. You were blind.

I don’t think you had been blind from birth, but as a side effect of your diabetes. You had primary diabetes which required you to give yourself insulin injections every morning. How you did it, being blind, I am not sure - but I think you injected into muscle rather than a vein, so maybe you just aimed for your thigh and hoped for the best. Perhaps the amount of the injection was pre-established in some way - like the insulin coming in a guaranteed right size packet for your type of problem. But I rather doubt it, after all this was long before things became so convenient and disposable.

You employed me, and many other girls like me, to read to you. I remember when you interviewed me, you asked me to read as fast as I could - which was no problem as I speak rapidly anyway. But when I put expression into the words, you stopped me and said, “Don’t do that. This is not a play you are reading. It’s philosophy, and I can decide myself what importance to put on words. Just read flatly and fast.”

I was disappointed, as I knew I had a pleasant, low voice, and had taken many parts in plays over the years. But you were the one who was paying me $3 an hour to read to you, so if I wanted the job, I had to do as you asked.

We hardly ever spoke of other matters. I would arrive at 3 p.m., you would indicate which book to read, and I would start and only stop when the hour was up. I don’t know how you made any sense of it at all. I probably read six chapters an hour, and I didn’t remember a word of it after I had left. But you didn’t take notes. I don’t know how you translated what I read into what you were then going to write in your thesis. I didn’t ask if you hired a typist or even if you could type yourself. I’ll bet you dictated into a microphone attached to a tape recorder. Mostly it was Spinoza I read, and sometimes when you needed a specific book, we would spend part of the time with me helping you find the right book in the basement archives of the campus library.

You managed to get around the campus on your own. with the help of your white cane. You took your meals at the student union, so you managed to get there, and to the lectures in other departments that you wanted to get to. So one day, when it was my job to serve a Hostess Meal for my advanced nutrition class, and needed to invite a guest, I asked you and you seemed very pleased and happy about the idea.

“The home ec department is just across the campus from our dorm,” I said. “The cookery room is on the third floor, and the lab we are using is the first on the left.”

“I shall be able to find that easily,” you said, and I believed you.

I prepared grilled chicken, squash rings with peas in the middle, cooked dandelion greens, and strawberries. I had planned the meal to be low in carbohydrate, knowing that you were a severe diabetic. The meal was due to be served at 12 sharp, and I had set the table, and had all the food ready and waiting, but you didn’t show up. We waited ten minutes, but then my teacher said we would have to go ahead without you.

I was marked down for the meal, despite the food being good and well prepared, as I hadn’t been a very good hostess and didn't make much of an effort to keep the conversation going. But all during the meal, all I could think of was, where are you? Why hadn’t you come? I should have sent someone to help you. I should have realised that it was too much for you to do, when you didn’t know the way or any of the people in the department except for me.

As soon as the class was over, I went to see you. “I’m sorry,” you said, “but I just couldn’t face it.”

And so things went on, and I read and you learned and progressed, and then came the morning when I was walking down the corridor and I could hear a moaning coming from your room. I was going to knock but just then our dorm mother came out of your room, saying that you was desperately ill and that the ambulance was on the way.

It transpired that early that morning, you had injected yourself and then gone back to bed. No food. You were having a insulin reaction - and you nearly died.

When you came back to the dorm, the reading continued, and I asked you about the accident. “I was so tired, I went back to sleep and when I woke up I was in the hospital,” you explained. But I never really did believe you. I think you knew well what you was doing and what you intended the result to be.

When the year finished, and I had had my last reading session for you, we said good-bye, without much emotion. You didn’t come back the next year - maybe you had finished your studies, maybe you had gone to another University, maybe you had had more success on your next attempt.

But one thing I will always wonder about is whether if I had been a friend to you - rather than just your employee; if I had cared enough to have thought through your problems and knocked on your door when you weren’t paying me; if I had arranged for you to come and eat my dandelion greens with a bit more forethought, then perhaps I wouldn’t now be crying now when I think of you.