Finding Momentum

Her voice is low, husky, tinged with sad­ness, she speaks in a tone that whis­pers melancholy.

Mar­garet Tread­bar, from St. Louis. She’s a stroke sur­vivor who can­not recall any­thing in her short term mem­ory. She can read, but will not remem­ber once the book­ends close.

She’s regained her speech and relearned read­ing from scratch. But any­thing she reads, she for­gets. She drawls out the next few lines and trails them with a sigh.

“I’ve searched high and low, but it doesn’t seem there is a novel that will fix me.” She laughs a lit­tle. She is 33.

“I derive most plea­sure from movies that seem like nov­els.” It’s some­thing about the audio/visual inputs that helps her cling to char­ac­ters who will not dis­ap­pear. She was a suc­cess­ful lawyer a few years ago. These days, she wishes to read.

“I watched Spring For­ward a few days ago and was almost moved to tears. It was almost like read­ing.” A long pause.