When the car smashed through the wall I was composing a text and when it came through the table I was toppling backwards on my chair and when it went through the bar so that spirits and glass showered onto the bonnet I was losing consciousness.
Through the inebriation, the shock and the oxygen, pumped down a tube, a sentence wormed it's way, devouring all before it:
"The pub, the pub, my father, the pub; it slides into the cemetery!"
To my mind it was penned by a poet of the 19th century but I have googled it since and if it was then that poet has failed to achieve immortality.
I spent only one night in hospital. The prognosis? I was drunk. The driver fared less well: Two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, three missing teeth, a broken nose and severe bruising to the face. He wasn't drunk, despite what the next morning's free papers would suggest.
"Scandalous!" one exclaimed "How can these people behave like this?" it asked "They have too much." it explained "They don't deserve it!" it judged "This must be stopped." it demanded without sincerity.
A week later I returned to the pub which had been patched up with mismatched panelling. The barmaid was new and turned when she saw me coming in a wing mirror, an early warning amongst the bottles of spirits. She poured my pint, scowling.
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