At times like this, he’d discovered that his thought processes drifted in the most unexpected of directions. This time, he thought about cooking pasta, and about how it all ended up with some of it up top and some of it at the bottom. All the individual pieces are pretty much identical, yet the segmentation happens anyway. It seemed to him like a great big metaphor for society; the key to democratic governance was to periodically stir things around, such that –

“And we’re done” the dentist interrupted, putting down her tools. “All fixed up and ready to go”

Dizzily, he forgot all about pasta, and rose to the occasion