Odometer
Whatever way the tale is told — a sky blue Sunbeam embellished with a dint in the offside wing, details of Jags with walnut dashes, or the broad, blank strokes eager to get to the punch and leave the listener free to assemble their own vehicle from the great spares shop of the mind — it always ends with a new owner screwing open the odometer all keen for winding back the clock and finding there a folded note which reads: Oh no. Please. Not again. Or something else along those lines.
The surgeon lifts a heart from ice. In the heat of his hands it begins to purr like a bat being brought from a house at dusk, and the way I always tell it, whoever receives the heart feels ten years younger. They only remember a blinding light and a joke they must have heard when they were under.
Paul Farley
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