Brian George

Slip Out of the Warm Sheets and Gone

Early as you can, that’s the time to get going. Just slip out of the

warm sheets and gone. Down the road. No looking back, no farewells, no

of course I’ll call you, I promise with a smile. Keep the smile for

later, when you’re well away, past the city limits, heading down that

old lonesome road. Lonesome but wholesome. One man on his own, taking

what the world throws at him, kicking ass when he has to, scooping up

the sweetness, the trickling honey of love when it’s served up on a

plate for him.

Except that’s all bullshit, horseshit, self-deluding any-old-shit.

You’ve never been able to break that clean, to be that mean. No sir,

you’re the one to make the breakfast, take it up to her on a silver

tray, pop out into the garden for a daffodil, a wild daisy, something

that looks like a flower, to set down next to the toast and honey, for

her to pick up and inhale the scent while she sips the cup of

Darjeeling you brewed up for her. And you’d be the one to call, later,

to set up a tryst, a more romantic occasion than the one which threw

you together. The one to pay Interflora to deliver some orchids on

Monday, so that she can blush and gush with her work colleagues, so

that you can sit there imagining all those other women thinking, wow,

she’s so lucky, wish I’d met him first.

And you’d likely be the one to pine, to suffer and sigh, when she

decides, sooner rather than later, that she’s had enough of all the

fairy tales and she’d rather someone a little less perfect, not quite

so cloyingly considerate, someone who lets her down, in small ways,

early on enough for her to spot the pattern and deal with it. Rather

than the one who’ll shatter all her illusions and really break her

heart when it’s too late, when she’s in too deep to do anything about

it.

So maybe you take that plunge, after all, creep out while she’s still

asleep, get yourself way down the road apiece in good time. Tread

those crap-strewn streets, breathe in the soiled air of a Sunday

morning city neighbourhood that’s seen better days. Remember those

warm sheets and that perfect touch of skin on skin, hold the memory

close like a threadbare t-shirt on your back.