left behind

I just took a break here in the office by reading the whole of Anthropology: 101 True Love Stories by Dan Rhodes. The stories are all around 100-150 words, and while some of them turn a too much on a cutely warped last sentence, the book on the whole is a fun bag of prose popcorn that is well worth the forty-five minutes it takes to devour it. Anyway, as I don't have any great ideas for posts and the continued rain in Cambridge brings out a melancholic turn, I'll instead here promote the book by reproducing three of the stories about being dumped:

Xanthe left me. I found out her new address and returned the kettle she had left behind. The next day I took her a book she had lent me. I found a box of hairgrips, and delivered one each day. If she wasn't home I would post it with a long letter explaining how I had found it on the floor. When I had returned them all, I took her, on the tip of my finger, a tiny ball of dust. "I remember seeing it fall from your dress one afternoon," I said, "The pretty one, with the flowers on it."

After Firefly left me I presented her with a video recording I had made of myself, so if she ever felt down she could be reminded that there was somebody out there who loved her more than anything in the world. I met her in the street, and asked her if she ever watched it. She said she did, and that it always cheered her up. She told me she particularly liked the part where I kissed and caressed the tiny black skirt she had left behind, and cried like a new-born baby. She said that always made her smile.

Treasure left me. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I understand how awful you must feel." Choking, I told her she couldn't begin to understand. She insisted that she could. "You know you'll never find anyone as pretty as me," she explained, "or as nice, and your every moment will be clouded by nagging recollections of times we spent together; times when you wrongly believed we had some kind of future. Believe me, I understand." she said, gently." A part of you has died, the part capable of loving and trusting, and you know you'll never get it back. Stuff like that."

BTW, for the trip to Madison, I was going to bring my jacket, but then because the forecast called for several inches of snow I decided to bring my big winter coat instead. While the snowstorm did strand me in Detroit for several hours, I never wore the coat during my visit. Several times I wished I had my jacket, but chose being cold to cavorting around in the cumbersome coat. Last night, as my flight from Detroit to Boston was taking off, I realized I had left my coat in the in the overhead bin of the plane going from Madison to Detroit. Story of my life.