Changes in procedure since he was last at the dentist, two years ago, before the Great Insanity.
Gaps where the niceties, common courtesies used to be.
Also missing, those calming posters thumbtacked to the surgery ceiling. Palm trees growing
out of tropical island sand. White cliffs. Coastal erosion at its most photogenic.
How to explain to the dentist, who is a) wearing a mask, and b) Spanish, why there may be
little point in us making another appointment for six months hence.
How to strike the right tone?
"How to strike the right tone?" I don't know, hence my wordlessness (while being well aware my desire not to be, through ignorance, trite or say the same meaningless things as everyone else. Then wonder how I can call myself a writer. Nevertheless, I wish you fortitude.
ReplyDeleteHello Sandra, thank you, and for your other comments too. I appreciate them very much. For some reason, known only to itself, Blogger won't let me reply to comments from my iPad. I have to fire up the big old computer on the landing, which is not one I work on very often :-) Which accounts for the lag. i.e. my own laziness. As for the blog, I seem to be in a reasonable rhythm at the moment. This kind of "loose haiku/diary" writing is what I should have been doing all along. It is what I originally intended the phrase Beachcombing For The Landlocked to mean. (But then I got knocked off the track and into a literary ditch.) Typical, that I only find out the way I should be writing just when I haven't got a lot of time left to practise! Anyway, that's how it is and that's how things are. Things are getting serious now but I'll aim for some lightness. Thank you again, so much -Mark
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