Fragments

It's all in pieces, like a smashed fine china saucer; I have no grand saga to relate, no complete 56 piece bone china dinner set.   Anecdotes, disconnected adventures, accidents and mishaps, brief stays, narrow escapes, journeys to somewhere and to nowhere, wanderings without purpose, and impasses.

I wanted to tell a story, one with a beginning, middle and an end,  a story long enough to fill up pages of  a hardcover novel, but I just don't have it, don't even have the sound and fury signifying nothing.

Clever limericks, bon mots, repartees, one liners, nothing but fragments.

The Purse

I met her during a walk in central park organized by our families.  She was accompanied by her boyfriend, who walked ten steps behind her carrying her oversize purse.   My cousin and I laughed discreetly, knowing that we'd never carry a woman's purse like a personal servant, or follow behind  like a Chinese wife.

Less than a year later, she left her boyfriend and came to me.  I had little to do with it, it was all her decision.  While she was a rare beauty, I was nobody's Prince Charming. She was strong willed, independent, and capricious. Soon, she moved on to other boyfriends, and later to multiple husbands.

"That's because you wouldn't volunteer to carry her purse," said my ever wise cousin, but what did he know?