The label-maker II

The first time Bob had a thought for Doris too complicated to be expressed by a simple sticker, he was sixteen.

It was true that Doris had an uncanny ability to understand each of Bob’s sticker-thoughts – sometimes even when he didn’t – but this particular thought was more important than the meaning of his fragmented life combined. He considered and eliminated every sticker shape, every colour, every number, every size, every level of glossiness, even all the animals of the ark. He even tried to imagine where it would end up, thinking he might work backwards. He had seen the way Doris arrange his sticker-thoughts in groups and columns, patterns and rows, even shapes and piles, on the back of her yellowing doll. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not picture how this thought would blend into the labyrinth. Frustrated by weeks of fruitless pondering, he bought a roll of address labels instead.

Doris was reading on a park bench when Bob approached on nervous unsteady feet, wiping his sweaty palms on the front of his trousers. Instead of a greeting, he paused to write his thought on a strip of label in a slow and tender hand – it was, after all, the first time he exhibited his handwriting to her – then carefully wrapped the label diagonally around her fourth finger. Doris rolled her hand over and around three times to read what he had written: Two words, seven letters.

When Doris smiled, Bob instantly knew the exact position this label-thought would occupy on the back of her fading doll.