From Peter Bichsel’s “A Table is a Table”:

“Something has to change.” And he no longer heard the alarm clock. Then his hands began to hurt, his voice failed, then he heard the alarm clock again, and nothing changed.

“Always the same table,” said the man, “the same chairs, the bed, the picture. And I call the table ‘table,’ the picture ‘picture,’ the bed ‘bed,’ and the chair ‘chair. But why, really?” The French call the bed ‘lit,’ the table ‘table,’ the picture ‘tableau,’ and the chair ‘chaise,’ and they understand each other. And the Chinese understand each other too. “Why can’t the bed be called a picture,” the man thought and smiled, then laughed, laughed until the neighbors knocked on the wall and shouted “Quiet.”

“Now it’s changing,” he shouted, and from then on he called the bed ‘picture.’