{"id":937,"date":"2023-09-29T08:20:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T08:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/?p=937"},"modified":"2023-09-29T08:20:27","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T08:20:27","slug":"short-stories-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/2023\/09\/29\/short-stories-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Stories #25"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"101\" height=\"151\" src=\"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ShortStories-thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-646\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>The twenty-fifth \u00a0story in my collection, <em>When I Am Not Writing Poetry<\/em>, is &#8216;Last Words&#8217; which is in fact the last you will hear of my three friends. And I give them the stage. Each, in their own words, has written something that brings everything that you have learnt &#8211; if you have followed (read the stories) them through this volume. Jan speaks first and then Professor Neil. Simon has the last word. The first excerpt is from Jan&#8217;s diary, the second from a letter which Simon sent to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Dear Diary. Today is the <s>fifth<\/s> sixth time I have seen him\u2014same cafe, same table, same time on Saturday\u2014although to be honest I don&#8217;t know when he arrives\u2014before me, at any rate; and he leaves after me. Perhaps he is there every day. I am so sure I recognise him! The first couple of times he was joined by a rather pretty girl quite a bit younger than him&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>How nice it was to hear from Neil and Jan after all these years. We had met before at a local artist&#8217;s reception in the university down here\u2014it must have been ten years ago before they decamped to your little town with its smaller university where they were both able to become heads of departments. And now we have all met up again. Although I must confess I could hardly remember you! The white beard didn&#8217;t help! Actually I can hardly remember those walks back to the boarding school&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8216;Last Words&#8217; can be found in <em>When I Am Not Writing Poetry<\/em> &#8211; available <a href=\"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/books\/\">here<\/a> or on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/-\/e\/B07P9R562F\">Amazo<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/-\/e\/B07P9R562F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">n<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The twenty-fifth \u00a0story in my collection, When I Am Not Writing Poetry, is &#8216;Last Words&#8217; which is in fact the last you will hear of my three friends. And I give them the stage. Each, in their own words, has written something that brings everything that you have learnt &#8211; if you have followed (read [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[19,39,71],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-chris-armstrong","tag-short-stories","tag-when-i-am-not-writing-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curatedlines.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}