continued from ….Borges, Asimov, Ice Cream and Thai Rolls Part I (June 19, 2014)…
I picked up the book and started thumbing through it, wondering if I would recognize some of the stories and whether they would have the same magic as they had when I read them in college. All the stories were familiar except the last one which was entitled, In the House of Ice Cream and Thai Food. I was intrigued by the title so I read on. The story was about a man named Angus Conceivo who worked in an office in Buenos Aries.
One afternoon, Angus was feeling ill so he left work early. On the way home he bought some Thai-takeout for his wife. He didn’t want any Thai food himself because his stomach was upset. Instead, he ate a stomach soothing bowl of vanilla ice cream as soon as he got home. And a bite of a Thai roll to top it off.
Then the pain started. Sudden and sharp, it escalated quickly to severe and throbbing. He doubled over in agony. His wife and neighbor rushed him to the emergency room where he was diagnosed as having a gall-bladder attack.
I was shocked when I read this because this was exactly what had happened to me. I had just come home from a stay in the hospital for a vanilla ice cream and a Thai roll induced gall-bladder attack, and there I was reading a short story that was an exact parallel to what had happened to me. A short story that was written seventy years earlier! It was incredible.
But what was also strange about this whole thing, was that I didn’t recall reading this particular story when back in college. How did I miss this story when it was the last one in the book?
It was so incredible I decided to call an old friend from college. He was a bigger Borges aficionado than I. Undoubtedly, he would have a copy of this collection of short stories and would have read this story.
So, I called my old college friend…to be continued…
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