That’s a line from a play (1941) by William Saroyan, a play that made a deep impression on me when I first saw it over forty years ago, As the play closes the lights go into the black and out of the grey/black, then the black, comes this voice saying, ‘Hello out there? Hello out there?’ And you, sitting in the darkening auditorium, know that no-one is ever going to answer.
I’ve written about the effect this had on me before and this week listening yet again to the voices of the owners of the seriously Christchurch quake–damaged houses which haven’t been fixed yet, the memory of that cry, ‘Hello out there?’ came back to me. These people have been saying ‘Hello out there’ for six years and no-one has answered.
Every story’s different and every story’s the same. Whether its fire, flood or quakes, death, illness, loss, we all want to be listened to and lots of times the act of listening is all that’s needed. Just to know that when we say ‘Hello out there?’ someone heard and answered is enough.
Do other people, organisations, governments, bureaucracies, listen when someone says, ‘Hello out there?’ Or are they so armoured in their own little complacent enclaves that they’re deaf to anything that doesn’t fit neatly on a form?
I think of the kind of person belonging to an organisation that demands she or he detail off a list of times for feeding, washing, cleaning, dressing, shaving and cooking for a very very disabled adult child (in his 50s I think), whose mother has asked to be paid for a forty-hour week. This in the face of the obvious fact that it’s more like a hundred and forty hours required.
Oh no. 6.5 minutes for this, 5.2 minutes for that, 8. something for preparing meals. For fuck’s sake? Sometimes it takes me over eight minutes to decide what to cook so the actual cooking, however long it takes, is extra. Have I ever, I ask myself, cooked anything in under 8 minutes? Toast, eggs, I suppose. Often its not the actual cooking time, its the assembling of the food, the preparation. Washing, slicing, cutting, beating, heating. And what about the visit to the shop or supermarket before all this? The 8.2 minutes would be gone long before you put the meal in the oven or left it to simmer slowly on the top. And this is only one dish. Hello out there?
Was there a set time for cleaning up after a meal? Probably. There were set times for washing, showering, shaving, getting him dressed, all would depend, I imagine, on what was being worn and how long the other things had taken. I was too aghast to listen properly to the time allowed for these things.
And this work is done every day, every night, has been done every day, every night, for over fifty or more years. His mother is in her seventies. For God’s sake just pay her the 40-hour a week wage, will you? Just do it.
Hello out there? Hello out there? Hello out there?
