Achan used to have projection slides - before PowerPoint made it so common place and foolproof.
They had to be made on chart paper, painstakingly proofread and photographed - graphs and all - then developed, clipped and mounted into little hinged cardboard frames, glued in place, numbered and stacked in boxes or slotted into plastic pockets in foldaway sheets.
Before every talk he would practice at home when it was my job to man the little humming battle-green projector - in its mysterious sky blue bag with UNICEF on its side - to drag that cartridge to the left or right whenever he said "next slide please" and also get the right slide in place just in time for his next instruction, with the dot in the top right corner such that when projected, the magic in that little lens and mirror would flip the photons in the air on their way to the light green wall of our hospital quarters with the exposed wiring and last year's calendar nail holes - the calendar was removed to make space for the image which invariably led to the nail falling out leaving a pit on the wall - and those photons leapfrogged, I am sure with a "whee" and a "woohoo" over the dust motes in the dusk to land right side up on the wall like an army of little spidermen or trapeze artists.
As Achan's talk droned on in the background I was transported into a land where the projector was a little robot camel and we were in a dust storm but this was in outer space and the projector cartridge was my cannon reloading - left first, then right - man all stations as the sirens blare and lock and load - wait for it - fire little robot camel,
fire
at
will.
Humanity depends on you.
"Next slide please" said Achan and I was back in my living room as if a secret Google Earth teleporter zoomed in to drop me off from the war in outer space and zoomed out again before he could see anything was amiss.
As I prepare yet another talk in the spare bedroom and two fearless little monkeys climb over me shouting out war cries at the top of their lungs I am reminded of those Sunday evenings when I was part of someone else's hopes and fears - someone I have outgrown in size but never will in stature.
