Making the Most of Lines.

I found a new crease mark on my face today. Not a wrinkle, you understand, just a line. It’s a very small one, positioned at the top of my left cheekbone where it meets the eye socket.

The thing is, I’ve had a small blemish in that exact spot ever since I got hit hard in a fight with an Iranian naval cadet called Razhegi when I was seventeen. (Nice bloke, Razhegi.) Now there’s a line there. I usually get a bit miffed when I see a new line appear, but I’ve decided to call this one a battle scar. When I become rich and get plastic surgery, this one can stay.

--------------------------------------

And on a related note, I saw Sarah from Mill Lane in Mill Lane again today. She looked a little anxious.

‘What’s up?’ I asked her.

She looked in all directions but mine, then turned her eyes to the ground.

‘There’s something I need to say to you.’

‘Oh, yes. What’s that?’

There followed a long pause, and then a sudden exhaling of breath that could only be described as impassioned.

‘I don’t think I can live without you any longer.’

‘Really?’

She nodded demurely, while Inca (the cocker spaniel) dodged the oversize tear that was heading in her direction.

‘But I’m too old for you, Sarah,’ I said without very much conviction. ‘Look at the lines on my face.’

‘Oh, but they’re beautiful lines,’ she protested.’ They speak of experience and inner strength. They look so lived in.’

‘You mean they don’t look like a map of Clapham Junction from the air?’

‘Well if they do, my love, then a map of Clapham Junction from the air must truly be a work of art...’

See what I mean about having a fertile imagination. I should write this stuff for a living, shouldn’t I? What she actually said was...