Picture This Exhibition

Have a caution of prior informed
restraint, exercise a care of what
you may release, unless that is,
you burn with compassion, or are
a deliberate masochist. Utter that
innocent-enough-seeming phrase
and stand back as the subliminal
urge to privacy succumbs to the
urgency to release life's ills to an
unwary and yet welcome ear.

The chance meeting of two old
friends on a refined and genteel
occasion expressed by sublime music
of Pictures at an Exhibition has
entered musical posterity as a
humble masterpiece of overstatement;
unleashed humour, drama, intrigue
and beauty of a masterful score.

Not to be confused with the choice
encounter of two elderly neighbours,
one hale and considerate, the other
frail and resentful, unleashing a
barrage of peeved utterances. A family
reunion gone horribly awry, with the
poignant, sharp-edged details
carefully sketched in indignation.

Another distant relative dead in
garishly unfortunate circumstances;
the ensuing family disputes on the
estate's dispersal satisfying no one.
More excruciating details relevant
to health and lack of it, with the
critical onset of a dread disease,
the following surgery, recovery,
horrifyingly unexpected relapse.

You asked. Did you not? You must,
therefore, out of a moral obligation
receive the endless flood whose gates
you so very fecklessly opened. Social
convention would have it no other
way. Cluck your distressed concern -
for the teller-of-tales - not your burning
ears. After all, there is a simple
solution: Don't ask or suffer response.