| Inventor: The Canvas | |
January 25, 2016
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| A man in his mid-fifties came to the inventor's office and started to tell of his concerns: His father died a couple of years ago. After that, his mother lived alone. He and his brother were worried about her because of her age and asked her to live together with one of the children. But, the mother said that she would like to live alone because it was easygoing. He recently heard that one of his friends' mother died of a heart attack. His friend found her a couple of days later when he went to his mother's house. His friend said that it was terrible. When he went there, he saw some newspapers in her postbox; and when he opened the door with his key, he found his mother lying face down in the corridor. After this, he checked the Internet about how to avoid senior citizens living alone having accidents. He went to his mother's house and suggested some products or systems that he found on the Internet. His mother's reaction was negative. She complained, saying that there was no privacy. He explained that it was different
He suggested her calling him with one ring every morning. She said it would be troublesome since she enjoyed freedom after her stubborn husband died. He suggested putting an entrance camera outside the entrance so that he could see her postbox, and, at the same time, it would be good security against robbers. She declined saying the area had no robbers since she started living here. He suggested about a health check machine which would send the results to her family; she said she went to a gym once a week and measured her condition, and that was enough. So he came to the inventor's office. The inventor asked, "How about you calling your mother regularly." The guy said, "I'm a busy person and it will become my stress. Furthermore, my mother likes to talk with her friends, and when I call her, she is always using her phone." "It's good. In that case, you can just call your mother and check if the line is busy; it means that she is ok." The guy said, "As I said I'm a busy man. You don't want to help me with this?" The inventor felt offended and said, "You don't want to do anything troublesome and want some company to deal with it suitably, right?" The guy glared at him but said nothing. The inventor regretted a little bit about saying too much, and told him that he would try to make something for him, so to come back again one week later. After the guy left, the inventor thought about his mother. His mother lived in a different city with her husband, his father. He only went to his parents' house once or twice a year. Someday, he might be in the same situation as this guy's. "What would I do in that case?" But, come to think of it, to check on her being ok or not is not the priority, of course, but her being ok itself is the priority. The guy said that she talked to her husband's picture every day and she liked to talk to her friends on the phonec One week later, the guy came back to the inventor's office. The inventor showed him a gadget that he had invented. He looked suspicious. It looked just like a 30 cm by 40 cm canvas. With a smirk, he said, "I hope you don't want my mother to paint something on this, and to call me to say to come to her to see it." The inventor looked uneasy but started to explain how to use this machine. On this day, his mother was talking to her husband in the picture on the small alter, "Your son gave me a strange gadget. This gadget doesn't send any signals, he said. Actually I don't care whether it sends something or not, but I feel uneasy to be supervised by a machine, rather than a human. Maybe I should accept it someday, though." She continued, "By the way, this gadget looks interesting. I'll try, so please watch." She turned on the gadget and the TV; soon a list appeared on the TV. She chose '1' which meant one player, and chose one thing on the list. Soon a view of town street appeared, it was a shadow picture. Soon a girl's cute voice sounded, "There once lived a mean boy." A shadow picture of a boy appeared on the street. The voice continued, "The boy decided to scare villagers and shouted 'Wolf! Wolf!" She prepared her fingers' positions looking at the manual. The voice heard, "One day, a real wolf came to the boy." She put her positioned fingers on the canvas-shaped gadget. Surprisingly, the shadow of a wolf matching its size appeared on the TV. The voice continued, "The boy was very scared. He ran away. The wolf chased the boy." She moved her hands, and the wolf shadow chased the boy accordingly c After all, she became hooked with this game. The game had a variation of stories and she could enjoy various fairy tales. She talked to her friends about this game. Her friends came to her house and enjoy playing this game together in the 'multiple players' format. Before, they mainly talked with her on the phone. But thanks to this game, they had a reason to come to her house. They realized meeting was more fun than just talking on the phone. (They also knew moving their fingers was good for their brains.) As for the guy, he became easier to reach his mother on the phone, and sometimes he heard her socializing among her elderly friends, and his mother said that she was busy and if he didn't have anything important to say, she wanted to hang up. He was happy. |
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*tell of sb/sth: to describe the details of an event or person (L)
*decline: If you decline something, you refuse it politely. (C)
*hooked: to feel a strong need for it
*as for sb: used when you are starting to talk about a different person (L)