Prologue
Holly lay in the gloom listening to the breathing beside her. She didn't even know the name of the man under the covers on her left, whose cologne was overpowering in the small box room. Still, it covered the smell of her feet. Holly had never met the man before. In fact, she'd never seen him conscious. She'd returned from her late night in the library, where she'd been reading a commentary on Tolstoy's latest bestseller in preparation for her next essay, the deadline for which was the day after tomorrow, only to find him in her bed. But she was tired, and no drunken idiot was going to stop her sleeping in her own bed, damn him.
So here she lay, in the darkness, unable to sleep anyway. Partly due to the cologne, partly due to the Tuesday night revellers outside the window and partly because she was thinking of Matt...
***
Matt was tired. He'd been listening to the girl of his dreams talk for three and a half hours about her latest pair of shoes. At one point he'd left the phone on the desk and gone to make a pot of tea, yet she was none the wiser. Now the phone was clamped between his shoulder and his ear as he flicked through the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in search of evidence of Alfred the Great's supposed homosexuality. Academic history was becoming about as intellectual as a Simon Schama documentary.
Matt loved the girl on the phone, no doubt. But why did one girl need 371 shoes? Where had that one shoe come from? Where was the other?
So here she lay, in the darkness, unable to sleep anyway. Partly due to the cologne, partly due to the Tuesday night revellers outside the window and partly because she was thinking of Matt...
***
Matt was tired. He'd been listening to the girl of his dreams talk for three and a half hours about her latest pair of shoes. At one point he'd left the phone on the desk and gone to make a pot of tea, yet she was none the wiser. Now the phone was clamped between his shoulder and his ear as he flicked through the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in search of evidence of Alfred the Great's supposed homosexuality. Academic history was becoming about as intellectual as a Simon Schama documentary.
Matt loved the girl on the phone, no doubt. But why did one girl need 371 shoes? Where had that one shoe come from? Where was the other?
posted by Kirk Yetton | 10:57 pm
5 Comments:
An amazingly high standard of literary talent. I think we might add this to our A-Level syllabus.
Chief Executive, AQA
I wish I had the abililty to add such philosophical touches and ingenious additions to my works.
Umberto Eco
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Chief Exec, you'll have to speak to my publisher. Umberto, unfortunatly we don't all have my talent for "inner meaning" (as examiners like to call it - philestines) and comments on the developmental philosophy and logic of the 21st Century.
Post a Comment
<< Home