Paradox II

S M Chen
5 min readOct 20, 2024

Paradox: a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.

I have a little card in my possession.

At the top it is printed:

PARADOCS — Handymen.

It is small, so small it fits easily into a wallet.

It contains 2 names, that of a retired dentist and that of my brother, a retired physician.

For a time they considered becoming a handyman team.

Photo: author

I know how handy my brother is.

The dentist?

If he was as handy with a hammer and screwdriver as he was playing the saxophone, well…

At the bottom of the card is printed:

“Now you can afford us.”

Which itself might have been a paradox, because some of the people the handyman duo serviced still might have not been able to afford them.

The two men were good friends until the dentist went on to that great dental operatory in the sky where all the teeth are straight and pearly white and all the gums are in youthful, vibrant condition, and all the drills are silent and sharp.

Come to think of it, maybe there’s no need for dentists at all there.

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