For The Love Of Dogs

Ignatius Plotsky was a poet in waiting, a painter in search of a canvas and writer of some obscurity whose insights were sited somewhere beyond the land of meaning.

Following a few drinks at the bar, and spotting a young lady who, as Shakespeare might have said, “Ticked all the boxes” he wandered up to her and, pushing his fringe aside in a practised gesture of world weariness said, “Faze in to the far out” while looking as deeply into her eyes as good manners would allow.

Her mind was filled more with the image of Maserati’s than poetry so we can forgive her, or anyone else to be fair, for failing to understand what he meant. Indeed he didn’t know himself but it had a certain cadence don’t you think? It flowed with obscure confidence, a silent volume possibly, or am I allowing myself to fall into the trap of meaningless profundities set by our pre-illustrious hero.

Whatever his failings or mine, his interest in the fair maiden was sincere, and seeing that her eyes did not fill with wonder he quickly added, “Perhaps we can discuss life and the apparel of the dilettanti over a meal at “La Gala,” which was an expensive restaurant of note in central London.

Here was her problem. He clearly had the conversational magic of a route guidance system, but La Scala was a seriously exclusive eaterie available only to the “More money than taste” clique, of which young Ignatius was a proud member. Brief images of a sun drenched Maserati speeding across the Alps toward Monte Carlo, with her in the passenger seat and music playing just loud enough to drown out his voice, moved through her imagination as she replied, “That would be lovely darling.”

She called everyone “Darling” in truth, but he was not to know that, and so felt flattered by this obvious sign of interest. “Let us move with languid haste towards the chariots of yore” he said quoting a line from the poem he had been “slaving” over the previous evening. Her mind, filled with expensive cars and drawing room trinkets, hardly noticed he was talking nonsense and gave him one of her deeper smiles which looked past his soul towards his bank account.

Curiously after both had exhausted all attempts to impress the other, somewhere before the desserts had arrived, they discovered a mutual love of dogs and potted plants: successful marriages, as Ignatius might have said, “Are often based on a lesser hue.”

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