Second opinion

I WALKED into a prisoner's cell the other day and found the following state- ments inscribed on the wall, in a material that looked uncommonly like blood:

I AM Al THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE. 1118 YEU.

The orthography notwithstanding, I have seen no more accurate or succinct description of British society today. These 11 words express the very quintessence of British modernity.

I returned to my hospital. One of my patients there complained that he had just lost two windows. It was a strange complaint. How do people lose windows, I wondered? I am myself extremely absent-minded and have several times lost all that can easily be detached from my person, but I have never come near to losing a window.

'How on earth did you do that?' I asked. 'I smashed them, didn't IT he said, as if speaking to an imbecile.

'Oh,' I said, 'you mean you lost it and went into one?'

'Yeah, that's right,' he said. I had okvi- ously regained his respect and we were now on the same wavelength. 'How did you know?'

To lose one window, Mr J—,' I said, 'may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like wickedness.'

Mr J— did not catch the allusion. 'Whose windows were they, actually?' I asked.

'My girlfriend's.'

He had, of course, been trying to get into her house and had not taken no for an answer.

'Did she call the police?'

'Yes.'

'What happened?'

'They arrested me and took me home.' `So much cheaper than a taxi, don't you find?'

This was what in America they call a learning experience: lose a window and get a free lift home.

People have a lot of learning experi- ences round here. For example, last week a man was brought to our hospital uncon- scious and scarcely breathing. He had taken a large dose of heroin, that nectar of the slums, that ambrosia of our youth, that elixir of underclass daydreams.

These days there is an antidote, fortu- nately, and it was given him. The sleeper awoke and asked, quite naturally, where the f— he was, and how the f— he'd got there. From his manner you would have supposed that he had been press-ganged into the hospital by doctors desperately touting for business.

'Were you trying to kill yourself?' I asked him.

'Nab,' he replied, 'too much to live for.' 'Such as?'

'My kids.'

`So why did you take the heroin, then?' 'I'd just been to a funeral in the morn- ing and was feeling a bit low in myself.' 'You wanted to cheer yourself up?' 'Yes.'

'And whose funeral was it?'

'My mate's.'

'How old was he?'

'Same age as me.'

'And what did he die of?'

'Heroin overdose.'

I searched my mind for a tactful way to phrase my nelct question. 'And what les- son have you learnt from this whole experience: you know, your friend's death, the funeral, your own narrow escape?'

He looked at me vacantly for a moment, as if not quite comprehending my question. I suspect that learning from experience was not his strong point.

'I don't know,' he said vaguely. 'I sup- pose I ought to cut down on my heroin.'

Theodore Dalrymple