Roger coughed, said something to himself, and cleaned up a spill. He thought of something he had thought of before. He noticed, while he walked to wring out the sponge that he had used to clean the spill, that there were other spills and irregularities that needed to be dealt with; and having wrung out the sponge he made those areas he had noticed orderly and regular, while thinking this thought he had had before.
Roger said something to himself, articulating a thought, and he thought the thought must be a pleasant one since he liked to have it and since he would resist being without it, although there were times, he considered, too, when the thought he believed to be pleasant would suggest another thought he believed to be not, and at those times he would not resist being without it. He might even start humming.
Roger wrung out the sponge, hummed, coughed and thought of something. Then he said something to himself and started moving away from the sponge, which was moist and mainly clean now but not entirely clean yet. He went farther and farther from the motionless sponge, sometimes quickly, sometimes haltingly, but never at a uniform rate. Roger didn’t tend to grumble and he didn’t grumble now. He didn’t say anything or think anything but continued to move away from the sponge until he began to get near the cart. When he got near to the cart, about a stone’s throw away, he began to move more and more slowly. He didn’t grumble. He thought briefly of the thing he had thought before and he thought also of a thing he had thought about it, which made him grumble then he coughed and opened the door.
He saw the cart and exchanged words with a person who stood by the cart. Some of these words were perfunctory and yet most involved the cart, which now Roger, coughing heavily, pushed away from the person who’d been standing beside it. The person said something. Roger replied to the person with something uttered and speedily started pushing the cart to a location where he found materials.
He thought of one thing while pushing the cart down to the location, and of another thing pushing the cart, which was now laden with some materials, back up to the original location; and of the same thing he had been thinking when he pushed the cart down a second time as he had when he pushed it back up the first time; then of something entirely different when he pushed the cart back up a second time. It was only after he had pushed the cart down for the fifth time that he thought again of what he had thought when he pushed the cart down for the first time.
Now he was coughing heavily and staring at a still and empty cart. Now he was moving farther and farther, sometimes in a vehicle, from the motionless cart.
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 