You walk into a restaurant you like, not having eaten for the last 18 hours. The girl at the counter looks pretty, but you have no time to stop n’ chat. You are on a mission—a mission to get a table.
Immediately.
Right this second.
The restaurant seems like a stock market, with loud people yelling at each other from across the room. The lamps at the table are blinding. Your memory of this place was lovely.
“This doesn’t look like the same one. Maybe it is. Too difficult to tell.”
Brain fog.
You see a live hog sitting at the table. Now that can’t be true!
You close your eyes, and open them again. The hog is gone, and so is the receptionist.
You close your eyes again to resume the previous scene. A Live hog sitting on my table is better than no table.
A lady walks right up; she is looking for a receptionist too. She looks pregnant. You need to be polite and let her go first. But hey, there is no proof she is pregnant. She might be obese. Or may not even be there. She might be a hog, for all you know.
The receptionist is taking forever. Maybe she has jumped behind the food counter and is working on the fries. Perhaps the fries are complimentary. Maybe the loaves of bread are. Perhaps even the tomato ketchup.
Are the tissues on her desk edible? Ooooh, Candy cane! Candy canes with caps!
Weird, but what the hell, if she takes one more minute, you are chewing that cane. Lollipops are hanging from the ceiling, candy canes on her desk, a Nanaimo bar for a paperweight, and incensed thin mints.
Oh, here she comes; she has chocolates in her hand.
You can’t take it anymore and snatch that bar right out of her hand.
She lets out a scream, and so do you. She disappears, and you are sitting in your bed, wide awake, having chewed up half your comforter.
The Last Leaf is one of the most popular short stories penned by O.Henry. First published in the early 1900s, this was part of his short story collection, The Trimmed Lamp.
The Last Leaf by O Henry: Summary and Plot Analysis
The story, set in Greenwich village, revolves around the lives of two young female artists – Sue and Johnsy, who live together in a small flat on the third floor of an old house.
Johnsy, suffering from pneumonia, is critically ill. She lies in her bed without moving, continually staring outside the window, worrying Sue. Her prognosis doesn’t look good, and the doctor expects her end to be near, given her complete lack of will to live, rendering the medicines ineffective.
Sue tries to make Johnsy a bit more interested in things around her, but to no avail. Sue begins to paint instead but is soon distracted by Johnsy counting backward, looking outside the window. Sue comes to know that Johnsy was counting the leaves left on the ivy creeper, visible from their window. Johnsy also proclaims that the moment of the last leaf from the creeper falling would be her last breath.
Sue, worried sick at Johnsy’s statement, tries to show how absurd that thought was and to convince her not to think such things.
Knowing that her efforts did little to convince Johnsy, Sue rushes to seek help from another painter downstairs – a 60-year-old man named Behrman.
Behrman’s lifelong ambition was to paint a masterpiece, but so far, he hasn’t been able to paint it.
Sue mentions her concerns about Johnsy’s lack of will to leave and her belief that she will sleep forever once the last leaf falls. Seeing no sense in such imaginings, Behrman laughs it off but agrees to honor Sue’s request to pose.
Johnsy was surprised to see the last leaf still clinging to the creeper the following day and the following evening despite the storm.
Filled with remorse at her depression and lack of response to her friend Sue, Johnsy stops thinking of death and moves on.
Sue is delighted to see her having soup and combing her hair – something she sees as a sign of the return of her desire to live. The visit by the doctor confirms that Johnsy is well on the path to recovery.
Once fully recovered, Sue lets Johnsy know of Behrman’s death from pneumonia, painting the last leaf which kept her alive.
The Last Leaf: Review and My Thoughts
This story brought back flashes of Gift of Magi; however, I surprise myself when I say that I find this one more saddening than the latter.
The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is ready to go on its mysterious far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.
While somber at the core, there are a lot of other flavors in the story. Consider the unnamed physician, for example. There is a certain weird comic relief from the unnamed physician that visits Johnsy,
I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count carriages in her funeral procession, I subtract 50 percent from the curative power of medicines.
If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in the cloak sleeves , I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her instead of a one-in-ten.
And then there is quite the strong emotion that Sue betrays, when asked if love with a man was what was root of Johnsy’s misery.
Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about twice – a man, for instance?
“A man?” said Sue, with a twang in her voice. Is a man worth – but no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.
Not once is there a mention of the families of either Sue or Johnsy. And as far as I can recall, not of Behrman either.
The girls seem poor and young but devoted to each other and the craft.
The old man downstairs: a drunk but soft-hearted; he is willing to go the distance for them. There is a certain purity in their emotion – otherworldly, seemingly embodying art itself.
O.Henry has painted for us quite the life of struggling artists. I marvel at how astute the painting is. Almost as good, if not better, than Behrman’s masterpiece.
I have heard and read that our body regenerates almost completely every ten years while vital body organs regenerate faster. Thanks to the influence Three Men in a Boat has on me, I never had enough initiative to research it to vet the accuracy of this statement.
Like a fool, who errs in favor of more speaking than less, and less work than more, I just blurted it once or twice in sporadic conversations with friends and colleagues.
Now, we all know the feeling of being new at our jobs. Those initial jittery days, when we can’t tell a head from a tail.
I know I do. I remember mine pretty clearly, mostly because I think I messed up everything I laid my hands on that fine summer day. And instead of making my ignorance obvious, I choose to act like a better fool.
An oblivious fool – I promise you they are the best entertainment because I have been told I was a splendid entertainer in the first six months at my new job.
Then a miracle landed right on my lap. I thought I had landed a jackpot with “I am new” – the king of all cop-outs.
What was there to lose? One ‘I am new‘, and my angry client would instantly drop a shade of anger. After all, new people are allowed to make mistakes.
Thankfully, years passed, and I had the company of some great (cool) colleagues, who were patient with me, teaching me the tricks of the trade while keeping from guffawing at my foolishness. I made mistakes, but less dreadful and less frequently than before.
But that also meant I didn’t have the cop-out of ‘I am sorry, I didn’t know that, I am new.’
Being new and wrong is passably tolerable at worst; being experienced and wrong will get you at least two to three verbal and/or non-verbal “Lord o Lords!”
All that to say that my years as a newbie have taught me a few things. Patience and understanding. If I was lucky enough to have that, it’s only fair that I pay it forward.
But it turns out I am not as patient as I thought.
Fast forward, there is a cell phone store close to where I live, and I usually go there for my cell phone purchase/fix/repair needs.
The store has been there for, I am told, a decade now. It’s pretty decent. Excellent display, clean, spacious, and organized.
I only have one complaint.
One of their guys handling customer service requests likes saying ‘I am new’ a lot. With the number of people that get to the store every day, I guess it will be difficult for them to remember who they serve.
Luckily for me, I don’t have that volume problem. That’s the only store I go to, and it usually has the same 3-4 people that serve customers. The guy obviously doesn’t remember that I have been on the receiving end of his ‘I am new’ for the past four years.
I found it funny the first few times and brushed it off. New people can afford not knowing.
But then it started getting to me. How did I grow four years older with 40 times more grey hair on my head, and the guy continues to be new for that entire period?
My imagination started getting more and more interesting, given all the superhero content I have been consuming in recent years, more so to cope with the lockdown.
If you are a superhero nerd and have watched Will Smith As Hancock, you would probably remember the scene where he chases his Alien superheroine, Charlize Theron (Mary), across Los Angeles in a violent fight. All because he responded to her cold-blooded “Call me cuckoo one more time!” with exactly that.
Cuckoo!
I reign in my imagination and then start thinking. What if there was a corporate guideline on the usage of the statement ‘I am new’ that you will not be allowed to say after you’ve been doing the job for a certain amount of time?
Should ‘I am new’ be banned and replaced with ‘I do not know’?
Will using the latter prod us into taking a more active role in our learning/development journey?
Of course, cognitive expenses become overwhelming at this point, and my little brain gives up. All I have decided at this point is if the guy tells me he is new one more time…
I don’t know why, but when I think of this term, the first image that comes to my mind is a completely flushed face, extremely cold hands, and a racing heart—all mine.
For those of you who aren’t aware of what these are, I envy you and then offer you a little bit of Wikipedia wisdom:
“An ice-breaker is a facilitation exercise intended to help members of a group begin the process of forming themselves into a team. Ice-breakers are commonly presented as a game to “warm up” the group by helping the members to get to know each other. They often focus on sharing personal information such as names, hobbies, etc. Ice-breakers are also used at social gatherings such as parties to introduce guests to one another in situations where they may not know one another.”
Sounds pretty harmless, doesn’t it?
A bunch of strangers, going around and telling everyone a little tidbit about themselves. This doesn’t even have to be personal information, which is just the icing on the cake I need.
Yeah, okay. I am good. Bring it on.
And out comes the ball exercise variation of the ice breaker, which is just the same as above, but with participants passing a ball around to catch, after sharing their tidbit. You would probably say, what’s the big deal?
And here is the explanation:
This object is the stuff of my nightmares. Nightmare exacerbated by plenty of childhood memories with laughing kids surrounding me (or at least that’s how I imagined it).
All because of my stellar hand-to-eye coordination playing catch. Always.
The curious thing about this particular deficit is that I never improved. My skills playing catch are at the same level as when I was four, maybe. If anything, they have worsened, thanks to my questionable physical agility and lack of attachment to any outdoor sports. The scores from the most recent frisbee game I played are a testament to that.
Unsurprisingly, I had the rock bottom scores – even when the co-players were aiming for the frisbee to land right into my hands. For my self-esteem, I suppose.
So back to the ice breakers.
Here’s how a typical one goes:
A: Hi, My name’s A. I love playing soccer.
Me (thinking): Oh God, he’s gonna throw the ball to me.
A throws to B
Me (thinking): Thank goodness! Please throw to someone else now, Not me , not me , Please!
B: B here, I love philately
Me (thinking): What a show-off, Philately! Not me, Not me, Please not me!
B throws to me.
Me (thinking): I am not gonna catch it, I am not gonna catch it, I am gonna make a fool of myself, everyone is gonna laugh, why the hell do they have to use balls in ice breakers? I will quit this today. No one will talk to me after today’s debacle anyway.
Sure enough, the ball grazes my nails and heads for the sky. I am no Usain Bolt. I run for the first two minutes and then walk to get it back (all the while telepathically begging it to stop and help me out).
After a walk of shame, I return to my spot in the circle.
If only they handed out degrees for that thing, I am sure I would now be prefixing my name with a Dr.
I tried to take the easy way out and pin it to a genetic fault – one that made me prone to tripping, but after weeks of ogling away at my parents’ movements, I was at a loss. Alas! I was a self-made tripping queen.
Tripping over electric wires, hanging loosely from the socket.
Tripping over a door mat (for real, no kidding).
Tripping over an Ottoman.
Tripping over a can of coke.
Tripping over a classmate’s foot (I am sure he held it out deliberately) on my way, running behind Miss Madan (one of my favorite teachers) on her way to the staff room.
I didn’t seem to learn much from them, given that my graph plot of average trips per year continues to defy all expectations from a person of normal hand-to-eye coordination.
Not contrary to what you’d expect from such an individual, I have a gamut of cuts, scratches, and embarrassing memories to show for it. I have made peace with it over the years. Or at least I think I have.
And this talent of mine isn’t restricted to physical comedies (comedies to you, of course, to me, they were anything but, at that time). I used to be quite the expert in a slip of tongues as well. I will spare you the details.
Suffice it to say that the most awkward mistakes I have made were a trip of the tongue, or putting a foot in it, if you will. That is why it made so much sense when I read this quote by Zeno.
Better to trip with the foot than the tongue.
Even the slightest slip of the tongue can potentially ruin relationships, your reputation, or some.
Reputation, I didn’t care about much, mostly because I hardly have any.
Relationships, yes, they hurt, they hurt badly and still do.
What I thought was a light-jested remark to a friend of five years didn’t go down so well with them. I can only assume because I haven’t spoken to them for years. I do feel like Adele’s Hello character, trying to get through to this friend.
All that to say, if my years have taught me anything, the tongue’s a titan. Heed you must, its powers.
