ASYLUM

* The Parable Of The Houses

There once were two groups of people, both intent on building a house. The rainy season was soon to be upon them, the weather already starting to turn, and so they wished for their houses to be built as soon as possible.

The first group began by surveying the ground upon which they would build. They dug, and started to lay foundations, solid blocks which would support the rest of the structure and make it easier to build and more stable. This took time, of course, and it was hard work, and the wind blew cold.

The second group scoffed at this approach. They instead found the biggest truck that was available for hire and headed for the nearest timber-yard. There, they filled it to the brim with two-by-fours, industrial-sized packs of nails⁽¹⁾, and weighty hammers.

Returning to the site of their house-to-be, they began nailing planks together at a fearsome rate, 2, 4, 8, 16... soon they had the rough outline of a house, although it was a little unsteady on the uneven ground. "See," they said to the others, who had just finished digging at this time, "We are so far along already, and you have nothing but a hole in the ground!"

They continued their work, hammering and nailing and occasionally cutting some planks down to size, until their house had a roof, separate rooms, doors, and even some furniture. "Look at those fools struggling with their heavy stone blocks," they said. "Our way is so much better. We already have shelter from the rain, and a place to sleep!" And so they took a nap, while their neighbours started the long, tedious work of laying bricks.

Some time later, they were woken up, shivering on their beds, as a chill wind blew through the empty window-holes. "So," asked their neighbours, "What will you do for windows?"

"Oh... well, I guess we could use really thin planks," came the reply. And, indeed, the Plankers — for so they came to be known — began shaving slivers from their planks. It took several days to get right, as it was difficult work, and there were many splinters and fractured off-cuts. Even once they had figured out how to make their strange, papery window and started making more for the rest of the house, they would frequently ruin whole boards and have to throw them away and start again. But in the end, they achieved their goal, and the wind was kept at bay, and a muted, amber light filtered into their house.

And their neighbours had to grudgingly admit, they were impressed with the ingenuity involved. Also, a little mystified — they themselves had simply placed an order for some normal glass windows, complete with painted frames and hinges and locks and they even had some curtains picked out, all ready for when the rest of the house was done. They would probably take a day to fit.

Meanwhile, the Plankers had another problem: To celebrate their success with the windows, they had consumed rather a lot of alcohol, and now they naturally needed a toilet — something their house of wood currently lacked. "Oh, that's not a problem!" said one, "We can just knock a few planks together and make one! Come on, it'll be fun!"

A neighbour, hearing this and stifling a nervous laugh, helpfully pointed out that wood absorbs water, and will swell and may crack if this happens. "Here," he said. "We have a spare porcelain toilet that was delivered by mistake. Why not use that?"

It must be noted that this gesture was not entirely altruistic, for the Plankers' proposed bathroom was on the side of the house closest to their neighbours, who feared what might happen to the quality of the clean air if the wood were to split.

"Pah! Rubbish! What do you want something like that for? It's ridiculous, all those floats and levers and valves, what a stupid, roundabout way of doing things. And look, it's so heavy! All that porcelain! It will crash through our wooden floors and make a horrible mess. No, we shall stick with planks, thank you very much indeed."

And so they struggled with the problem, trying to reproduce the principle of a toilet, out of wood. In the interests of taste and decency, gentle reader, we shall gloss over this less savoury aspect of our tale, and let it suffice to say that after a considerable amount of time had passed, the leader of the Plankers finally came to the bathroom to see what progress had been made⁽²⁾.

Upon seeing the mess in the bathroom, he threw up his hands and announced, "Toilets are rubbish! Look at you, trying to make this complex machine out of wood. Stop wasting your time. I know what we need." And with that, he strode out into the back garden and, seizing up a two-by-four, used it to dig a pit, and over it, he constructed an outhouse. It was a little rushed, if the truth be told, but this is mentioned not by way of condemnation — like all the Plankers, he was quite anxious that some sort of latrine be ready for use as soon as possible, and I'm sure you can understand why!

This troubled the neighbours, however. "Are you living in the dark ages? The world has moved on! For decades now, even the poorest among our society has had running water and a toilet!"

Replied the Plankers: "They were good enough for our ancestors, it'll be good enough for us. What's the point reinventing the good old-fashioned outhouse just for the sake of it? Besides, who are you to talk? You don't even have a roof yet!"

And so time passed. The Plankers started filling out the house with more furniture, but progress was slow; each was designing his or her own chair, table, cupboard, drawers or shelf, and each was having to learn it anew. Much effort was duplicated, and often they found that furniture that was supposed to sit side-by-side did not fit easily. "No matter, we can just adjust it... a few extra planks here... a bit of sawing there..."

Meanwhile, their bricklaying neighbours had finished the walls of their house, and were constructing wooden support beams for the roof. "Ha!" crowed the Plankers, seeing this. "Even our neighbours with their lah-dee-dah bricks and stones secretly know planks are the only real way to make houses."

Their neighbours just smiled a little and shrugged. "We're happy to use whatever materials or techniques are appropriate to the task. Here, wood is the right thing to use, so we use it. But not always," and they started to lay their roofing tiles, and soon were finished.

And just in time, for almost at once, the dark weather was upon them. Sheltered inside their home of bricks, glass, beams and tiles, they began to flesh out the inside of the house. They spent time working out the plumbing, so that they could have running water, hot and cold, take showers to wash off the sweat of their labour, and of course they fitted their porcelain toilet, which, though heavy, was no trouble at all for the floors of their sturdy house.

As the weather outside worsened, and the rain fell, they built furniture; one of them devised some plans, drawing them out on sheets of paper which were cut out to form templates to guide the cutting of the raw materials. They fit together beautifully.

Their Planker neighbours were having some difficulties, however. The rain had soaked into the rough earth beneath their house, and it had turned to mud which was seeping up between the planks. One night, the whole house shifted slightly, and they woke up to find all their furniture was warped and cracked. Where they had nailed bits together to try and make them fit, they became less flexible and as ground shifted under them, forces pulling each which way, they couldn't take the strain.

As they worked to repair the damage, done to work they had thought complete — and having to stop several times a day, don wellington boots and a raincoat and umbrella, and trudge to the outhouse in the pouring rain — work next-door was proceeding quickly.

Not that there weren't setbacks; no plan is perfect. But when they found that a mistake had been made in the kitchen designs, they simply moved the contents around a little. Their kitchen units were modular, and could fit together in many different ways. After trying them out in a couple of different arrangements, they found one that worked, and then made a nice cup of coffee, as the rain trickled down the windowpanes.

The Plankers had another problem; the rain was soaking through their windows! They'd only made them to keep out wind, not water, and now they were starting to turn... squishy. Something had to be done. Back on came the raincoats and boots and out into the rain again they strode, hammers, nails and planks in hand, to fit little shelters to the top of each window-frame, like a front porch, to keep the rain off the windows.

This seemed to hold for a while, but the walls were already stressed from the subsidence and as the nails were driven in, they had started to crack. Focussed on their task and with rain and sweat both trickling into their eyes, the Plankers didn't see the cracks appearing. In fact, the first they knew of it was when their house started leaking like a sieve!

With all the higgledy-piggledy furniture inside, and the layers of wooden repairs over the top, it was hard to tell where the water was coming from. They put their wellington boots back on, this time not going outside, but sloshing around the ground floor of the house trying to patch up the holes. It took a long time to find them, especially as, though the water was downstairs, half of it had trickled down from the floor above, running in rivulets down the walls, behind the cupboards and shelves.

They tried nailing more planks over the top, but the extra nails just split the sodden wood further. So they started rigging up strange scaffolding-like structures, that funnelled the water through a complex drainage system until finally spilling it back out through a new hole they had to cut in the front door, through which the cold wind blew.

Looking out through misted glass, warming their hands on mugs of hot drink, their neighbours watched all this and shook their heads sadly, muttering to each other about the chaotic scene they beheld.

Seeing this, the Plankers were vexed, and called out, "If you're so clever and knowledgeable in the ways of house-building, what do you suggest we do to keep the rain out?"

And, in a way, it was a good question. Glass windows would not fit or stay in the warped window-holes of the wooden house. Plumbing could remove the water and even put it to good use, but where could it be fitted when the whole house leaked? Would it even hold together if the house shifted again? And brick walls would sink into the quagmire that was developing around the base of the house, as water soaked into the mud. Each of their modern enhancements relied on the previous ones for support, building up from those stable foundations to make a robust whole. The few tentative suggestions they made would not work as afterthoughts bolted onto a crumbling structure, and were quickly shot down: The neighbours had to sigh and admit, they did not know what could be done.

And the Plankers laughed and said, "See! These people are not so wise after all! They do not know how to fix a house such as ours. Who built their house first? Who solved the problem of the paper-thin windows? Who solved the problem of the leaking house? And who has fixed all the little bits of broken furniture? We are the hard-working and clever ones here!"

And with that thought, they were made glad.

(1) Unbeknownst to them, not all the pieces of shaped metal were nails. But if all you have is a hammer...

(2) In all fairness, it must be said that he had not been lazing about all this time. The windows had not been quite the success they had at first thought, as high winds had punctured holes in the fragile panes. He was a fearsomely busy man, going from room to room repairing the thin sheets, which was frustrating, painstaking work that kept him up late into the night.