Despair

It walked into the bar and started asking questions.  For some reason, he quickly fixated on me for his questions, as if I had the answer.  As if  I had any answers…
“Do you know a man who seemed to do everything wrong today?”
No.
“Did it feel like he could do no right?  I mean he couldn’t get which hand was his right hand if you asked him
10 times today.  I mean he was having a breakdown of epic proportions, but seemed only half aware.”
Don’t we all have days like that?

“No, this man went 0-3 when asked to set a table.  I asked him to put the fork down in the correct spot, and he guessed right, as in the not the left side. When I corrected him, I asked him to set the next place.  He remembered being taught, ‘left has 4 letters and so does fork so it goes left.’  Never mind my just having told him for the setting next to him.  He looked at his hands, to figure out which is left saying, ‘stick out your thumb and L appears on left hand.’  Still, it seemed he had no thumbs today which upset him. He just placed the fork down quickly in frustration, and he was wrong again.  So I asked him to reach across the table and set the last place.  He put the fork on the left this time, his left from across the table.  He was very annoyed at being wrong again.  Like I said, 0-3.  Sound like anyone you know?”

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No, everyone here is smart and sharp as a tack.  We all have thumbs.
“I don’t think you understand.  He had thumbs.  He just couldn’t use or see them for some reason.  When he got frustrated, even the simple became impossible.  He could still remember the logic to find the answer, but he couldn’t use it.  He muttered something about a Mendoza rule and how he didn’t even belong playing the game of life at this level if he is wrong on everything.”
Wow.  I think I would lose my mind if that happened to me. 
“He did seem in rather a bad way.”
Did he ever find hope?
“I am wondering the same thing.  It’s why I am looking for him.  Will you tell him I am searching for him if you see him?”
Sure thing.  Who shall I say came a calling?
“The Fractured Mirror”
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Side note from a picture posted to Facebook because I find what’s left to be as interesting as wondering what was taken. Are there that many things to be taken ahead of love, faith, peace, passion, healing, beauty, patience, and freedom? Maybe those who took already have those things?:

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2 thoughts on “Despair”

  1. Mendoza line is a reference to a baseball hitter being able to hit 0.200 or in not baseballeze, be able to get a hit once every five times they came up to hit. The Mendoza line is famous because it's often used as a minimum requirement. One manager said (paraphrasing), "I don't care how well you play the field if you can't hit above the Mendoza line. If you can't hit 0.200

  2. Hi!
    Okay, this one made me tired! I had to stop and think of who Mendoza was (and gave up and googled him) and then I had to untangle the legalese at the site where I found him, and finally read "fourth ammendment" and knew where I was, finally.

    Is that like not recognizing your left thumb?

    Do you know that you can speak America sign language with either your

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