Rapid Response

The flat smelled of new paint, and a print by, I think, Klimt, I want to say Klimt, hung on the wall of the kitchen / diner / living room. I had been away for some days, in fruitless romantic pursuit of a librarian from the Three Counties Area. All had been going well until she'd asked me in detail about the poems of Ashbery, which I had professed to love, I confess, as a white lie in order to woo her. I have always been more of an O'Hara man, and my knowledge of Ashbery is, at best, scant. My protestations that we might compromise on a shared love of Kenneth Koch fell on deaf ears, and it was the cold of platform two at Hereford station for me. But as I'd journeyed home I'd comforted myself with the sure knowledge that my cheery, pleasantly cluttered flat awaited. In the depths of disappointment, I've always felt, home fires are a comfort. So you will understand that I was not my equable self when discovering, upon my return, a lick of paint and a Klimt print. In m...

The woman on the bookshop till says The Great Gatsby  is her favourite book she says she's got three copies I've bought it on a whim, with The Princess Bride  and a book that Murakami recommends I'll get round to them all at some point, probably I was early for a dental appointment a filling in a back molar, poor time-keeping, so I shopped because I can, and because it's sunny at last and I can buy books on a whim now I bought some bread from the market too, the guy tried small-talk but it isn't my thing, I smiled politely At times like this, say something non-committal I haven't read The Great Gatsby in about twenty years, a girlfriend borrowed my copy She's gone on to do more with her life than me. I wonder why the woman on the counter has three copies