Love.

Love is like a bus. The driver, assuming it has one, holds the key to your happiness. It can arrive at any moment, often to your surprise, and leave when you least expect it - much like a cat’s neck being broken and the sorry excuses from veterinary nurses that will follow.

Jenny thought about this now as she waited for the number twenty-four. Love was in the air, so she walked through love as she approached the corner. Where was he? He had told her to meet him here. He was Jon, no ‘h’, a discontent, attractive boy she had met at the literature festival.

Shit, he’s here. It wasn’t surprising that he was late. He wore a baseball cap and had an open shirt, but these seemed like things she could fix. Jon was tall and angry. Jenny was a little shorter. He smoked cigarettes. She worked in a store that sold things.

“You must really hate yourself.” he said, knowingly lighting an unstoppable rage that would likely last many diary pages. An aura of silence surrounded them. So did the smell of exhaust gases given off by a bus that just left. The 1040 to ... somewhere. Anywhere would do.

“What are you talking about?” Jenny demanded?

“Well, it seems that your book hasn’t really caught fire yet.” he replied, nicely?

Jenny liked him, and the idea of her work catching fire, the heat of the earth first catching the pages, then the cardboard cover and then the dust-jacket until her entire career was in ashes. “I know.” you prick.

“Want one?” he asked, passing her a cigarette. Her younger sister Charlotte had told her that they were ‘bad’ - no - ‘just bad’. If only charlotte would grow up. Jenny hated the idea of smoking but was too in love with Jon, no ‘h’, to care. Precisely, using her middle and index finger, she grabbed the awaiting cigarette. She felt elegant and was pretty sure Jon, no ‘h’, was staring down her top. Breasts breasts breasts.

“Who’s the boss now?” She asked, albeit rhetorically, whilst taking his cap. If only her mother could see her now. This is love, is it not? This sharing of toxic and potentially life-threatening cancer sticks?

“There’s a party at Rook’s place. You in?” he maybe asked. The ground around her seemed to be covered with a gilt lining. Like her armoire. What would she wear?

“What a splendiferous proposition.” her response.

“Swashbuckling.” his retort. They laughed for maybe thirty seconds.

Her bus, if we continue this spuriously-related analogy, had never gone anywhere, an amateur, she suspected its route but now posed this question to Jon, no ‘h’. “How should I know?” was his response.

Inside she felt like killing him and loving him at the same time. She wanted so badly to runaway crying but she was also too afraid of being typecast a nancy whatsit, homosexual man.

Contemptible Mike, if I may muddy this tale of absolute truth, climbed atop the town’s fountain, sheltered his eyes from the sun using one hand and balanced, from what would be an almighty fall, with the other. Mike knew she would become embarrassed. Hell yeah. And so it was that he proceeded to stand and shout, in the loudest voice and with the most heart-felt notion embraced the fact they were enemies. “Jennifer France, I love you!”

Jenny’s head popped around like a meerkat who’s flight distance was sorely shortened.

“You’re crazy!” She shouted in his general direction. Passersby stared with quizzical stares of staring. Stop staring.

“He’s crazy.” Jenny muttered to an aghast, although not with any reasonable standing, Jon, no ‘h’.

Mike threw an apple in her direction and gave her the most almighty stare of complete and utter clarity like that only exhibited by crazy people.

“To the fairest!” he shouted. And so the apple rolled, if you know what I mean.