so, for a few days i'd been spending much time visiting a friend in hospital, and the first time i noticed a large sign reading 'This is A Talking Sign', which babbled as i went past it, i laughed.
later, i had a wonderful talking sign moment which gave me perspective.
i was following my by now habit-formed mental map to the right ward, so perhaps i gave the impression i usually knew where i was going. a couple, bangla, middle-aged, stood confused in the stairwell. the man attracted my attention with a mute wave.
he held a piece of paper with the name of a different ward, which i didnt recognise, written on it. all the wards, like many of the streetsigns in that area, are marked up in bangladeshi as well as english. but the pointers are not, and the names of the wards on the talking sign are only in english. but the piece of paper he held had the name written in UPPERCASE; the signs are in mixed case, and not knowing the depiction, he couldnt make the transposition.
so, i pointed him at the talking sign. he hit the button for bangladeshi, and it started to explain what it was and how it worked. then i pointed at the button for the ward they wanted. he pushed it. the sign babbled on, i wondered off.
later i pottered back to play with the talking sign and make cheesy netmovies of it, but i'm not sure how they came out.
talking sign 1 (748K mpg)
talking sign 2 (768K mpg)
i've given up looking for morals in stories.