Another day. Another meal. More food. Ruth is talking up a storm, as usual. She’s rattling on about two or three things at once. She’s doing enough talking for all of us. She’s become predictable. How she speaks and throws her head back when she laughs.

Hilbert came and sat for me again, not long after I woke up. It was his idea this time. He sat near the window, looking tired but handsome in the morning light.

I’ve noticed Hilbert has been speaking less the last couple of meals. Not to the same completely nonverbal extent as Pete, but even his eyes look more distant. It’s sad. He eats with the same vigor, though, as we all do. I’m worried about him.

Ruth is laughing at her own joke. A big belly laugh. Uproarious.

The entire day goes by in a blink of an eye. We sleep at the same time. We have our meetings. We nap. We have free time to work on whatever we want. Morning to afternoon to evening. It’s only strange when I think about it after the fact. Not when we’re in it. In the moment we’re just living, consuming, occupying, sustaining, going forward, from one thing to the next. I was painting a lot today. Focused, engrossed in the picture. I’m trying to catch Hilbert’s eye, but he’s focused on eating.

Cutting, biting, chewing, swallowing.

“How is it Hilbert?” I ask.

He nods and offers a sound of mellow satisfaction. But he doesn’t stop eating. He doesn’t engage the way I expect him to. The way I want him to.

We’re all so captivated by our food. We eat fiendishly. It’s not about enjoyment but sustenance, just getting as much as possible. Do we really need to eat so much? I scan down and see that I, too, have already finished half of my plate. I stab a piece of carrot with my fork. I’m still hungry, but I don’t put the piece in my mouth. I pretend to. I check to confirm that Jack isn’t watching, and slip the carrot into my napkin while I imitate chewing and swallowing. No one is paying me any attention. I do it again, with another piece of carrot.

Then I glance up to see that Ruth, still babbling away, is looking right at me.

She must have seen what I did with the carrots, but she doesn’t say anything. She just turns back to her own food. Before she eats another bite, though, Ruth starts laughing. It’s a quiet laugh at first, muffled. But she continues, and it gets louder.

“Stop that, please. We can’t eat with all that,” Hilbert says. He sets his cutlery down, refusing to eat until Ruth stops.

He looks older to me. Frail. As if he’s aged overnight.

“You look tired. I think you should rest,” I say to Hilbert, but I don’t think he hears me.

Ruth is still laughing.

“It’s not funny,” I say to Ruth.

Jack steps over to calm Hilbert. Shelley appears from the kitchen and walks over to Ruth.