John Tranter

I was arrested because of that internal memo, and ended up in a cell, then I was told to sit with the police and the local bigwigs. In the hushed and fast darkening room they said someone—someone—had reduced the safety margin on the airport risk factor, and I got the blame. The sky that day was a pale, clear blue, but that was happening outside, and far away. The cop on duty would not open the tomb of the deported—sorry, departed—and as usual he had a story. Every movie, he said, depends on a script, and the narrative grows out of market research: a set of standard deviations. Art? What would they know? Open the tomb, and let me in.

Jim Gott and old money don’t mix. There is no possibility of change. He sent flowers to the old lady, to no avail. Then he fought the Chinese laundry over the disputed crease in his last clean shirt sent by ups ; the Chinaman got a court order that he not be so called. He makes peanuts: Jim’s thousand a year is viewed as a decent living: you figure it out. Old Gott was taken to court, a kind of maze synod, that September, ornamental cherry petals littering the streets. Thirty-eight years later the charge sheet tells us that he was called The Fiendish. In the distant future, I shall be as efficient as you.