WordPress Daily Prompt: Counting Voices

A lively group discussion, an intimate tête-à-tête, an inner monologue — in your view, when it comes to a good conversation, what’s the ideal number of people?

I do not have a view on this subject. Conversations just happen, they are generally not planned. Two people meet (or even a mushroom and a feather) and they talk. Either it can be pure boredom when you encounter someone you would rather have avoided, or you meet an old colleague and spend the time catching up on the miseries of life.

My inner monologues are usually about 14 hours, which are my waking hours. My stomach tells my brain “I am hungry” and so I eat. My recycling system tells me to visit a quiet place, and perhaps take a book with you if it will be a long visit. Often my legs tell me to take a rest, they are not ready for action. My brain is the headquarters for all this conversation. There might be a time when I use my voice to express pain, if I drop something on my foot or burn my finger when cooking.

Now and again I have a lively conversation with Tabby my feline. After lunch I decide to retire from the world of discussion and relax. Two minutes later Tabby arrives from some unknown place. I taught her some time ago to be polite when meeting a human, and now she always says “meow” when she arrives. I answer with a “meow” and that is our conversation before we both have forty winks.

I often Now and again I might have a conversation in my sleep, although I am not aware of it, and those that can hear do not understand or remember what it was all about in the morning. I am quite bilingual in my nocturnal talking sessions, so if you happen to listen it is good when you can speak and understand English and Swiss German.

I grew up in a family where the art of conversation was a little lost. For some strange reason people did not talk to each other, they shouted at each other. Dad is a little hard of hearing due to working in the machine department of a factory all his life and being in the army on the heavy guns for five years in the second world war. In the good old days hearing protection was not issued. My memories of mum and her sisters are one large shouting match. No-one really won as the volume of their voices was equal.

I think growing up in the East End of London you had to shout to be heard. Heavy, noisy trucks would thunder through the small streets throughout the day. If you visited the local market the stall holders would shout to attract attention to the goods they were selling. My childhood was full of noise, so is it a wonder that I tend to have a loud voice? The swiss are a quiet race, so it can be somewhat embarrassing from time to time for the others.

Do Mr.Swiss and I have conversations at home? Of course. There is a lively discussion in the morning before we take to the shops, planning the daily meals for two days. However being online partners, our main communication is by iPad or computer. Mr. Swiss reads his books on the iPad and so do I.

At the moment I am having problems with communication on my computer. The keyboard is missing out on the letters and each time a different one. This morning it was the “e” (which is the most common jused letter in the alphabet) and the “o”. If I type “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” I see immediately which letters are not working. After lunch the enter key decided to strike, which meant that nothing would work. After five minutes the keys are again working. I do not know the name of this complaint. Perhaps there is too much milk emptied into the keyboard at my daily breakfast computer work. Perhaps it is the DVD which one day mysteriously disappeared into the computer, never to be seen again, but I am sure it is there somewhere. The DVD drive is still working to receive other DVDs. However in two weeks I will have my new super Apple lap top and can perhaps have my Acer repaired. I can now communicate with Apple computers, after practicing on Mr. Swiss little Mac laptop. We even now have a blue toothed mouse. The wonders of cyber energy. I am not sure if I should feed it with gorgonzola cheese, the one with the blue mould.

Time to go, I can feel the need to communicate with a human, although I am not sure if the human is ready to communicate. He is engrossed in a book on his iPad.

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