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Showing posts from December, 2018

Two Extremely Handsome and Well-Dressed Men

An extremely handsome and well-dressed man is stood outside HMV in Gloucester.  It’s mid-December.  He looks and listens as the shoppers walk by.  The hum of Christmas. ‘I’m going into Superdrug to get some eyelashes, then I’ll meet you in Primark,’ one woman says to another as they pass.  He smiles.  He notices the accent more now.  It slides back onto the man’s tongue whenever he’s home.  He no longer lives in Gloucester, but is a stone’s throw from the Gloucestershire border.  He loves that border.  He’s proud that he didn’t need to go far to find his dream job.  The drive back into his home county is like sliding into a warm bath.  He refocuses, observes.  If you turned the scene upside down, ticked and unticked shopping lists would flutter down like snow.  Not just snow but Christmas snow.  Pillow-soft, whiter-than-white movie snow that never turns to slush.  Snow you can walk into a bookies in the summer and bet on.  Snow that children pray for, snow that postmen