panic attack city

"How would you describe the temperature of your eyes?"

"Would you say they feel warm?"

"If they feel warm, do you feel worried about that?"

"Do eyes ever feel cold?  Do your eyes ever feel cold?"

"I know what a cold eye feels like," said the farmer.

"Really?  Like what?"

Well, like a cold eye.

"What does a warm eye feel like?"

"I know what warm eye feels like," said the scientist.

"Really?  Like what?"

"It feels warmer than usual.  You notice it.  You wonder about it.  You think it might have something to do with something else.  A warm eye is never just a warm eye.  A warm eye is always something else, a symbol of some greater disease or disorder."

"What disease or disorder?"

"You name it," said the scientist.  "It could be cancer.  It could be diabetes, HIV, bird flu, swine flu, something dangerous, something lurking.  Something you would worry about even though you know you don't have cancer, HIV, or influenza."

"Why would I worry if I know I don't have all of these diseases?"

"Because you have warm eyes, and warm eyes always point to something.  It's like eyesight.  You can never see yourself seeing, even if you look in a mirror.  You can only see the fact of your retinas, corneas, etcetera.  The first-person part is concealed.  Warm eyes are like that.  They point beyond themselves.  Symptoms.  Symbols.  You starting to understand?"

"No, I'm only confusing myself.  Symptoms, symbols."

"symbols, symptoms"

"Is this an etymology lesson?"

"No," said the scientist.  "You have warm eyes.  I'm trying to show you explicitly that you consider them a symptom immediately and not afterward.  You don't wonder about warm eyes as a fact.  You wonder why you have them.  That's the problem."

"Is that really a problem?"

The scientist pondered for moment.

"It might be something bigger, a way of doing things," said the scientist.  "Why 'immediately'?  Maybe because it's a symptom, it's how you live.  Everything is a symptom of something else, of something lurking behind it.  You wonder what things point at, what they do, how they are.  Everyone notices things. Sometimes the nearest things--like warm eyes--are the hardest things to notice, or they're only noticed when things go wrong."

"Exactly!  Why would my eyes be warm?  What's wrong?"

"I don't have answers," said the scientist.  "I only have remedies."

The scientist paused. He outstretched a hand.

"Want a valium?" he asked.

[Further note, 2/9/10: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8505998.stm -----exactly.]

[on a side note, looking at the spelling of "symptoms" almost gives me a panic attack in itself]