FOOD FOR THOUGHT

THE GIFT

There were two men in a hospital room. One of them occupied the bed near the window. He could sit up on his bed for one hour each afternoon. The other man could not sit. They talked all the time. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their vacations, everything.

Every afternoon, the man in the bed near the window would sit and describe to the other man all the things he could see outside the window. “There’s a park across the street from the
hospital. There is a lake in the park, with ducks and swans. Children are playing in the park.”

The man in the other bed liked to listen to the descriptions. In fact, he began to live for those moments. He would close his eyes and imagine everything his friend was describing to him. One day, the man described a parade passing in the street. Although he couldn’t hear the band, he could imagine the parade.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths and saw that the man close to the window had died peacefully in his sleep. She called the hospital attendants and told them to take the body away. Later, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to move him to the bed near the window.

He was eager to look though the window and see the world with his own eyes. He was shocked. There was only a blank wall outside. 

He asked the nurse why his friend had described such wonderful things when there was nothing but a wall outside. The nurse was surprised and responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

PRESCHER, E.; PASQUALIN, E.; AMOS, E. "The Gift". In: Inglês - Graded English. Volume único. 2 ed. São Paulo: Moderna, 2005. p. 182.