The intensity of Oedipus' pain that he would actually gut his own eyes is simply almost impossible to believe. After all we're not talking of Oedipus' being a real person, but of an imaginary character, something like what I am when I am dreaming. So it is difficult for me to believe differently from what I have already concluded, that Oedipus was insane when he plucked out his eyes.
I went to a small hospital (which had about 20 patients in it) to visit my mother and my mother's brother, my crippled uncle George (1925-1979, who had polio from an early age and was unable to walk, moving around by scooting on the floor). Both George and my mother had been patients in the hospital for quite a while. I saw my mother, wan and worn. She was thin and for some reason she reminded me of a road map.
I left, but then returned, this time just to visit George. When I arrived, I discovered the doctors had been releasing most patients, but George hadn't yet been released. I found him in one room, where he had been cut up so his whole insides had been carved into. The sight was a bloody mess.
The doctors said they were going to have to do more tests, apparently for sugar diabetes. So, to perform electrical tests, they put George on the bed and attached some electrical wires to his innards. George was on the other side of a screen so I couldn't see him. The doctors said they were going to increase the amount of electricity for the test. George was supposed to indicate when he began feeling the current. The doctors increased the current until George finally said something and the doctors turned the current off.
Clearly not much hope was left for George. He would probably never be released.
One of the two doctors working on George was older. I had the feeling that they had neglected George a while, but that there wouldn't have been much hope for him anyway.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I hadn't seen my mother any more. I stood up and said, "Where's my mother."
As I began looking around trying to find her, it suddenly dawned on me just how important my mother was to me. I needed to find her.
Copyright 2011 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
