February 2022
Moose-head, doe-eyes, shrew & Alternative Navigations were published in Impspired Volume Seven on 23rd February.
MOOSE-HEAD, DOE-EYES, SHREW
Clive Montague never liked me particularly. I certainly never liked him. Loud, boorish, with floppy fair hair, there was — there is — nothing to like about him. This gives rise to two questions:
First. Why, some twenty years ago, did I receive an invitation to the house-party he was hosting at his parents’ country residence in Dorset?
Second. Why did I go?
Continued ...
ALTERNATIVE NAVIGATIONS
Adrian’s godfather, Benoît, lives by himself in an apartment in the sixième, not far from the Jardin du Luxembourg.
—You know, Adrian, he says. One should always marry a foreigner.
Adrian smiles. He has heard this from Benoît before.
—Find a woman whose first language is not English. In my case, naturally, her first language must not be French. This is the way to avoid misunderstandings.
Benoît speaks from experience. He has married, successively, a Greek, a Guatemalan and a Hungarian. Until recently he lived with a Texan. Their months together constituted an interlude of bliss, he says, and he and Mary-Beth barely understood one word the other said.
Continued ...
