When he read

When he read a book, the words swam. He'd read and re-read a paragraph, but the meaning would elude him. He'd read each word, examining it and not moving to the next one before he'd thought yes, I understand what that word means. But by the end of the sentence, the combination of word-meanings had slid away, and there was no sentence-meaning in its place. It was a blur, a blank, a smear of text without hope of comprehension. He went on, saying to himself that the meaning would come, he just had to swim through the words to find it.