“How so?” he asked me.

“Well, nobody ever takes account of their feelings, do they?”

“What do you mean?”

“My wife and I took delivery of a new couch yesterday. We moved the old one down into the basement, and put the new one where the old one had been.” I paused, expecting that he would see the point. He didn’t. “Well, I mean… How does the old couch feel about moving downstairs? Have we upset it or have we made it happy? I’d like to think that it’s happy being in a nice quiet place now, but I don’t know. And the new couch… have we done what’s best for it, or would it have preferred to stay at the showroom? And how does the room feel about it?”

“I think you’re working yourself up for nothing. Let’s have a cup of tea and think this over.”

With tongs, he took a sugar cube from the bowl and held it over one of the steaming cups. He released it. As surely as if it had been a bridge leaper, all I could picture was its impending death by drowning.

This is such an uncaring world.