What Do You See?

“Assume incorrectly. Go on. Try”.

Blank stare.

“Make a wrong assumption. Take a look and try and cock it up completely”.

Nothing. No reaction.

“Do you understand the question? I want you to look here and say something incorrect”.

Momentary flinch around the periorbital edema...bit of skin under the eye, to you and me.

At least that could be read as an indicator of life...a sign that there may well still
be a spark or two left in the noggin.

“Alright. Look at the picture and tell me what you don’t see”.

As questions go, it should be a simple one. Eliminate a cow, a young lady,
a field of green grass, patch of blue sky, sun, some clouds and a barn door
and you’re on your way.

“Anything at all. Name anything you don’t see”. 

He had asked that question so many times that it no longer took him aback.
Quite the opposite really.
In eleven years at the facility, only nine of them had named one item not in the picture.

Usually they seem to mutter “Cow” first and then look up pleadingly like a child
tested on his two times tables for the first time in his life.
That’s followed by an immediate reversal after processing his reaction “No, not cow….no”. 

No. Not cow. 

The flinching had been a once off, it would appear.

This one is useless.

Try for the last time. Too many others to get through today.

“Do you see a train?”

Apparently too complex a query. 

Click the ball point pen into life, grab the clip board, under the box labelled ‘Yes/No’, write ‘No’.

Again.

Press red button on top of desk.

One day it will all have been worth it.