When i still had pretensions of being a proper writer...

I wrote this back in 2005 when I had pretensions of being a proper writer, I still think it's pretty good....

“Did I ever tell you about the time I found that magic paper handkerchief?”

Dermot Kennedy studied Saul, his drinking companion of many a year, sourly.

“I don’t believe you did,” he said eventually.

Saul took another swig from his pint, as though the subject was closed.

Dermot took another gulp of his own pint. He was not a man to be easily out-nonchalanted.

“Saul,” he said, at length. “I must admit, Normally you don’t interest me. Normally, you sit on that barstool and you talk about your Marjorie, little Sean or Ursula. You might make a remark about the footie. You might even express a view about the weather. But you’re not what I’d call an interesting man…”

Saul nodded in a not particularly interesting manner.

“But today, Saul, today you interest me…?”

Saul looked up questioningly, richly puzzled at this turn of events.

“Today, Saul, you sit on your bar stool as normal – but then – in a very un-normal way – you ask me if I’ve heard about the time you found the magic paper handkerchief…and suddenly you interest me…”
“

Ah,” said Saul.

“Not to excess, you understand Saul. But I would say my interest is piqued. Somewhat.”

“Ah,” said Saul again, abstractedly sipping his pint.

“So, Saul, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d be grateful if you had a mind to elucidate me further…in your own time, of course.”

“Well,” said Saul, “there was this time I found a magic paper handkerchief…”

“I think,” said Dermot, “that we have established that and indeed my once piqued interest already feels a hint of the wane…”

“Well,” said “Saul, “I had one of them colds…”

“One of what colds would that be, Saul?”

“One of them colds that people catch when it’s cold. A great snuffling, snot-nose of a cold, a great runny head full of mucus sort of a cold…

“Ah, one of them colds,” said Dermot.“And I was at the airport…”

“And what was a man like yourself doing at the airport then, Saul, what with you having one of them colds, an all?”

“Well our Marjorie…”“Ah, Saul, I can tell the details of the necessity of your visit to the airport are not necessarily what you’d call pertinent to your relating…”

“Right you are Dermot, pertinent they were not, never less so,” said Saul, tapping the right-hand side of his nose meaningfully.

“Anyway, there I was on this strictly non-pertinent visit to the airport with one of them colds and the snot was streaming out of me like one of them rivers….Dermot nodded.

“And our Marjorie said that I needed a paper hanky,” said Saul

“She wasn’t wrong there Saul. Smart woman your Marjorie, if not a particularly interesting or pertinent one.”

“Very true Dermot. Never a truer word. Anyway, as luck would have it, there was one of them shops there…”

“One of them hanky shops?” asked Dermot.Saul looked doubtful.“No Dermot, I don’t think it was strictly a hanky shop. They sold newspapers and books and magazines and I think they had some of them DVDS. And I think there was some of those NOBO magic markers on special offer, too.”

“Ah it was one of them John Menzies,” said Dermot.

“Or…” said Saul thoughtfully, “it could have been a WH Smith, now I think of it…”

“Aye,” said Dermot, “most likely…”“Anyway, I went in and asked them straight out for a packet of hankies.”

“And did they oblige?”
“Dermot, they did. So there I was, at the airport, with one of them colds and a packet of freshly purchased paper handkerchiefs, nasal relief for the use of.”

“Not a situation I would be envying you of.,.”

“So I opened the packet and blew my nose on the first hanky, all crusty it were. After that is, not before. And I was just about to throw it away, when it spoke to me…”

“It never…”

“Sure as I’m sat on this stool sipping this pint that you kindly provided, it spoke to me.”

“And you never thought to mention this before…”

“Well, Dermot, the moment has never seemed right.”

“Well what did it say to you, you there with that cold an all?”

“It said: ‘Don’t throw me away….’”

“It never…”“Sure as I’m sat here on this…”“I think I gather how sure you are Saul. What else did it say to you in that airport there?”

“It promised me riches, Dermot. Riches beyond the ken of mortal man. It promised to give me that Claudie Schiffer for a wife and it promised to make me irresistible to all women and make me the happiest man in Christendom…”

“And what was to be your part of the bargain, then Saul?”“All it wanted in return was that I didn’t throw it away, cast it aside, like a…”

“Like a used hankie?” Dermot proffered.“Very true and very apt,” said Saul.

“So what did you do?”

“Well Dermot, I did what any man would do, I kept it. It was that Claudia Schiffer that swung it, ever since I saw her in the Magic of David Copperfield, I always thought there was a certain…”
“Chemistry?”

“Yes Dermot, chemistry and, I thought, it would be wrong for either of us to fight it further…”

“So you acquiesced?”

“That I did Dermot. And I treasured that used hanky as though it was my own. Which, in many ways, it was.”

“Well what was the outcome then, Saul? I’m sure it was your Marjorie that was down for the Pub Quiz Tuesday and not the lovely Ms Schiffer and that’s not a mistake a man would make easily…”“

Well, you Dermot. I was sorely misled. I treasured that snotty hanky, gave it everything a slightly-used man-sized ply-fold nose receptacle could crave. It wanted for nothing, but in the end…”

“In the end, Saul?”

“In then end, Dermot, it didn’t deliver. Women still found me largely resistible and the gas bill still goes largely unpaid. I was deceived, cruelly deceived by a Kleenex that was no better than it should have been..”

“You mean...” said Dermot.

“Yes,” said Saul, “it was nothing but a tissue of lies. Same again?”