Sitting in the breast care center, waiting a long time for them to do a little procedure, just a follow-up with sonogram instead of radiology—just in case, since the first go-round showed something to be concerned about; and then we’ll do the consultation with the doctor. Does a longer wait indicate something wrong? Or just checking to see that everything’s alright? Sitting in the waiting room, bland green and tan chairs, tables, walls, floors, and artwork. A wannabe Puvis de Chavannes. But who would know that the “artist”—actually the illustrator, no artist, this Brian Kershisnik, with all the genius of a housepainter—was copying Puvis de Chavannes? Who in this room has even heard of Puvis de Chavannes? Or Impressionism, or neo-impressionism, or symbolism, or even France?

It was quiet for a while, nobody else was in there; but then they came: the people with several generations, the little ones running around, the older ones yelling at them in Spanish. I get so very tired of hearing Spanish. It’s a grating language, a lazy language. Then some more people come, and they sit right behind me. They are only two generations. But they talk incessantly. They are speaking a Polynesian language, which sounds like Tongan, but hard to be sure. And it is an even more grating and unpleasant-sounding language, especially trilled at full speed and full volume. I think Italian or French would be much more pleasing to hear and not listen to.

There is a law of heaven that applies on earth: where there are two things, one is greater than the other—in other words, nothing is truly equal. And where there are two things, and one is greater than the other, there is another greater than them all. That’s a law irrevocably drawn up in heaven, and we see it here all the time. That applies to languages.