I Know I'm Not Wrong


       Alistair comes for dinner. He is a friend of the Finnish girl's.
       'He's like a Labrador!', she says.
       The Stevie Nicks Pervert can see what's happening.
       Alistair sits at the table and cuts his food into smaller and smaller pieces, puts some in his mouth, and the rest somewhere else on his plate.
       Alistair sits back in his chair, stands up, and pushes it back further against the wall. He sits down again, humming.
       The Steve Nicks Pervert has been doing his Welsh accent for almost half an hour, and the strain is starting to show. There is almost something Indian about it now. It's made a sort of mark on the tablecloth.
       Alistair leans forward and picks a bit of wool off his fork. He puts the fork down again and presses at the knot in his scarf.
       The Finnish girl has not understood a word that's been said in the past half an hour. She's decided to smoke herself sick. She stares at Alistair's hand at his throat. Her tongue is sticking out. Both men are watching her and wondering what this means.
       The Stevie Nicks Pervert stands up. The mark on the tablecloth is the size of the subcontinent itself. He leaves and comes back with the African elephant mask; is wearing it; is an inch from Alistair's face.
       Alistair is looking at his watch. Alistair is in the hall, somehow. He has taken the Finnish girl with him. She is saying something that sounds like, 'Sorry', but The Stevie Nicks Pervert isn't sure. He is imaging a thing with the body of Labrador and the head of a man. It holding her from behind and slow dancing, its chin on her shoulder.
       It's not even Alistair's chin, he thinks; it's not even Alistair's head.
       The Stevie Nicks Pervert decides that something has gone very wrong.

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