The Sound of Silence, part one

left to right: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton

When I woke up, I couldn't speak. Perhaps because I was still woozy from the sedation, it didn't occur to me at first to question why I couldn't speak. Believe it or not, I also couldn't tell time, use a cell phone or write. To this day I believe that at some point when I was out, there was some oxygen deprivation to my brain. Someone (I still don't know who) had taken a yellow legal pad and written all the letters of the alphabet on it for me to point to so I could spell words and communicate. One night during the second week of my journey from coma to consciousness I was actually able to watch TV. Unfortunately my choice of entertainment was somewhat unnerving; I watched a very bizarre movie called "Fight Club". There's a character in it named Tyler Durden, who doesn't really exist. He is merely the alter ego of the protagonist, whose name escapes me. In fact, he may not even have had a name. I was half zonked when I watched this, so as little sense as the stupid flick would have made to a fully-conscious human being, it made even less to me. Next day Kalman and Blimie were there and I was pretty sure that Kalman had either read the book or seen the movie. I wanted to ask him about it, so he whipped out the alphabet pad. I pointed to "F". He and Blimie repeated: "Eff". Then I pointed to "I". Then "G". "Fig!" they shouted in unison..."Dad wants a fig!" It was time to get my voice back.