number there should be one but where do i count from?
there is a whistling, hissing sound coming through the window of my living room, which is to my left.
when i look toward the origin of the sound, i see a blue cube that occupies almost the entirety of the window.
words visible, printed in white italics, lower center: home oxygen therapy.
above them a curious yello logo, like a bad matisse figure. maybe a yellow jet aircraft expressing surprise using the conventions of traditional comicbooks.
from the top of the cube billow clouds of oxygen.
engine sounds curl around the cube--it must be a truck but i cannot be sure from this vantagepoint.
i just rolled a cigarette.
while i was rolling, the hissing, which had stopped mometarily, resumed, accompained by more clouds of oxygen.
the smoke from my cigarette trails across the monitor of my computer.
i walk to my window.
i see the words: aporia health.
by the time i get back to my chair, i am perplexed by the term aporia health.
investigation leads to the oed:
aporia: 1. Rhet. See quots.
1589 PUTTENHAM Eng. Poesie (Arb.) 234 Aporia, or the Doubtfull. [So] called..because oftentimes we will seeme to cast perils, and make doubt of things when by a plaine manner of speech wee might affirme or deny him. 1657 J. SMITH Myst. Rhet. 150 Aporia is a figure whereby the Speaker sheweth that he doubteth, either where to begin for the multitude of matters, or what to do or say in some strange or ambiguous thing. 1751 in CHAMBERS; and in mod. Dicts. [E.g. Luke xvi. 3.]
2. A perplexing difficulty.
1888 Athenĉum 18 Aug. 219/3 No quibble was too sophistical, no too transparent, for him to think it worth examination.] 1893 W. CLARKE ROBINSON tr. Ten Brink's Hist. Eng. Lit. II. 80 The solution of many an aporia, as attempted by the idealistic thinker. 1902 Daily Chron. 12 Dec. 3/4 Mr. Kidd does not seem to us to surmount this aporia very successfully.
Last edited by roachboy; 08-19-2004 at 08:10 AM..
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