On the whole, I find that in hospital they do not think of the future or of the past, nor think much at all. As far as life and growth goes it is a hold-up!
There is really not much to hope for; the leave is so short, the home-life so disrupted that it cannot be taken up with content. Perhaps it isn't possible to let one's thoughts play round a life about which one can make no plans.
They are adaptable, living for the minute—their present hope for the cup of tea, for the visiting day, for the concert; their future hope for the drying of the wound, for the day when the Sister's fingers may press, but no drop be wrung from the long scar.
Isn't it curious to wish so passionately for the day which may place them near to death again?
But the longing for health is a simple instinct, undarkened by logic.
Yet some of them have plans. Scutts has plans.
For a fortnight now he has watched for the post. "Parcel come for me, Sister? Small parcel?"
Or he will meet the postman in the corridor. "Got my eye yet?" he asks.
"What will it be like, Scutts?" we ask. "Can you move it? Can you sleep in it? Did he match your other carefully?"
"You'll see," he says confidently. "It's grand."