Orange Wire

It is a project which seems simple. Let me see what it is. Why, it is only the hooking up of a modem. I can do this.

It looks like a small roadster. A gleaming sleek metallic swoosh. I open it and see there are many cables, small bundles of wires, myriads of them. All I need do is hook these wires up to my modem at home. This is very simple. Plug and play.

Let me see. There seems to be a color coding scheme. However, the color is all orange. Each of many cables is filled with twisted swarms of orange wire. Yet it is simple. I plug each into the like port in my modem at home, and there you are.

But how will I tell each wire from each? There are many webs of them. I could follow each one to its logical conclusion. But there are miles between this modem and mine. And I cannot move either one.

I could mark each wire, as, terminal one, two, and so. But I would have to mark them every few feet, because I must go far, and I cannot see more than near.

I could just hold one orange wire and walk with it all the way to the other modem, plug it in, and then return for the next. I could do that. But it would take me many trips, and the earth, it is very old.

I am on the phone now, to the realtime owner of the bookshop in my town. He is saying something comforting but not helpful. I wonder if I might call in an expert. I don't want to, because I should be able to set up a new modem. It will bring much data so rapidly. But first we have this of the setup.

A little girl just at adolescence approaches, takes off her jacket; a very tight sweater remains. She snuggles against me, smiles up into my face, says, "My teachers like me very much."

She's like another orange wire. She knows nothing of modems.

Now I am making my way down a mezzanine. I'm holding a tray of chocolates, and trying not to step on pages open on the steps so that very little space remains for my feet. The pages are pictures of saint or patriotic frenzies. Uh-oh. I drop some. I am thinking of retrieving them, and also thinking, what will that do to the confidence in chocolates? And thinking, it's only more orange wire anyway.