Categories: uncategorized
Date: 13 October 2007 18:46:36
...to wander past a branch of Oxfam without sneaking a peek at their books. Such was my position last week, so I indulged: "It would be foolish not to" I justified to myself, "you never know what you might find."
Heading Inland by Nicola Barker is what I did find, a collection of short stories. I'm into short stories at the moment, mainly because they tend to be shorter than longer stories. Anyway, what persuaded me to part with hard cash was this bit from page 1:
Martha's embryo was unhappy about its assignment to Martha. Early on, just after conception, it appealed to the higher body responsible for its selection and placement. This caused something of a scandal in the After-Life. The World-Soul was consulted - a democratic body of pin-pricks of light, an enormous institution - which came, unusually enough, to a rapid decision.
'Tell the embryo,' they said, 'hard cheese.'
Plus, whilst having a preliminary browse around this new textual object in bed the other night I discovered that it also appears to be signed by the author, which seems in some funny (ludicrous?) way to justify my purchase with some kind of sense of destiny. Yes, you're right, I do have an over-active imagination.
In other news: for the first time in 2 or 3 years I seem to be wearing a black shirt, not a t-shirt either but a proper shirt with collar, buttons, sleeves (though rolled up) and cuffs. I'm not ordained (to the almighty relief of the church and probably the Almighty him/herself) and haven't even been listening to Nick Cave recently. Maybe it's 'cos it's autumn and there's already enough colour around the place?