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+---
+title: Question
+genre: prose
+
+id: question
+toc: "Question"
+
+project:
+    title: "Buildings out of air: Paul in the Woods"
+    class: paul
+    order: 19
+    next:
+    - title: Sapling
+      link: sapling
+    - title: Reports
+      link: reports
+    prev:
+    - title: Window
+      link: window
+    - title: Punch
+      link: punch
+...
+
+"Do you have to say your thoughts out loud for them to mean anything" Paul asked Jill on his first coffee break at work.
+It was in the city and his mother told him she wouldn't drive him so he'd had to take the bus.
+Number 3 he thought it was.
+[He couldn't quite remember.][remember]
+Jill said "Sorry what?"
+Paul realized that she hadn't really noticed him there in the break room as he was hunched behind the refrigerator a little and she was busy pouring coffee and exactly two tablespoons of both milk and sugar into her mug before she put the coffee in.
+He decided to repeat the question.
+
+"How do you think" he asked.
+"Like everyone else I guess" she said "I have a thought and if it's important I write it down."
+"Do you have to say them out loud for them to make sense?"
+"Are you asking if I talk to myself?"
+A pause.
+"I guess so" he said looking down.
+He had a feeling this was a bad thing.
+"Sometimes" she said and walked out of the break room.
+She didn't understand the importance of his question.
+She popped her head back in a moment later and his heart leaped in his chest.
+
+"How's your first day going so far" she asked.
+"Can you understand everything okay?"
+"Yes" he said "you were right it's pretty basic."
+"Good" she said.
+"Paul?"
+"Yes."
+"Do you have to say all of your thoughts out loud to remember them?"
+He shook his head.
+
+Only all of the time, Paul thought to himself but didn't speak.
+
+[remember]: riptide_memory.html