a one hundred and twenty third story...'norman's thirteenth love letter'

Dear Rosalind:

My inspiration, perspiration, validation, and verification - I do hope you are well!

So begins my thirteenth letter to you since last we were together.  And you have sent four in reply (of varying degrees).  Rosalind, I maintain this is a respectable ratio, even a basis for a future relationship.  Reciprocity is key after all … Although, I suppose I have learned a lesson with regard to your feelings on my Chaucerian love poetry – once bitten twice shy.

At last a reply from Collins, would you believe – and in writing! (albeit word processed).  They say they are still getting around to it (‘it’, meaning a decision).  Wow!  Seems as if the editors there are involved in a parley to match that of Brutus and Anthony!  This must mean good news.  If I become famous, Rosalind, I promise to you now I will be as modest and humble as any other Joe Bloggs; there will be precious few extravagances on my part – although I would like a new pair of shoes, a sports car with open top (imagine the fresh Mediterranean breeze in your hair, winding down mountain roads to Monte Carlo!), and perhaps one or two first editions (five or six?).

I am not a preposterous man! Or, a presumptuous one!

Meantime, I wonder if you believe in fate? I can’t decide.  Napoleon Bonaparte certainly did (I’ve been reading some French history books of late), and look what happened to him!  Well, quite a lot of things actually, but in the end he died in exile.  Rosalind, I don’t want to die in exile, and I hope fate (for what it’s worth) does not have this in store for me (us?).  I realise we are all ‘terminal cases’ but there is a point in getting with somebody (say there is!); surely not every single relationship is doomed to end (death and/or separation).

If I sound miserable, I apologise, but remember: miserablists are often the realists in a world where everybody else is madly optimistic!

My second cousin was mad, incidentally – mad as a cow with legs back to front.  He killed himself.  Why? Because he thought everyone else was insane.  Was he right? (He was probably wrong to take LSD in his breakfast tea) But was he right?

O! Ros, do get in touch – missing you dreadfully (Fritz has no interest in philosophy, no interest in literature, or for that matter anything to do with the Arts).

Yours (slightly) sorrowfully,

Norman.

… waking up to life.