Sentence The Onehundredandthirtyfourth
We told our story, or at least it sounded more like a story than a factual statement: T: well, you know my name – oh, sorry, for the tape, yes, ok, right, no problem, sorry Isa, I mean Constable Urquhart – this microphone, right, yes, well I'm Teri, sorry, Theresa Somerville, I live in Souter's Place, off the High Street, you don't need my age or anything, fine, just thought I'd check, right, that's me, oh, sorry, well I'm a Freelance Writer and Blogger and part-time Lecturer in The Art of the Short Story; S: and I'm Sammy, oops, Samantha Linger and I live in Corstorphine, Rebus House, it belongs to the University, I'm a Reader in English Semantics and The Pedantry of Linguistics, oh, and we just met today – I've been following Teri's Blog, you know, The Adventures of Daphne and Maude, on Blogger and providing a commentary and analysis for my students on the Beowulf Cluster in the Department and thought I'd visit some of the locations for my research and, Wow, I bumped into Teri; T: oh, It was me who bumped into you, Sammy and knocked your coffee over; S: oh, sorry, right, yes; T: so you'll ask questions, Isa and we answer them – and are they open or closed, the questions, sorry, shut up Teri – I'm such a Gasbag; T: yes, we had followed a Man, though we didn't know who he was, or why – other than that he'd come out of Martin Elginbrod's Chambers and at that moment we had the wherewith and it was a change from the regular jog-trot, you know; S: no, we don't know Martin Elginbrod, personally; T: only that he is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma – or as one of the wee Montelimart sisters put it the other day, “a half-sooked sweetie, wrapped in a tissue, left in a trooser pocket an' pit in the machine on a boil wash – ye tak it oot an' say 'fuck me, wha pit this in ma pooch?'”; S: out of the mouths of babes and sucklings; T: they probably pick them up at school; S: swear words; T: no, sticky sweeties; S: yes, he was walking fairly quickly, kind of steadily, like a policeman, oops, I don't know why I said that, or a soldier, not festinating, but not dawdling; T: I don't think he stopped at all, until just when he came through the back door in Cockburn Street and we nearly bumped into him; S: so, that's right, we had followed him all the way from Elginbrod's to The Malt Shovel Inn; T: then only my Dear Reader, Sammy, had gone into the pub because I can't go in there, because, well, it's just that, erm (long pause) they use Palm Oil and I'm boycotting it; S: are they? T: yes, definitely; S: so I found a seat at a table fairly near the back where The Man joined another guy by the Juke Box and played a few records, which I recall were 'Stand By Your Man by Tammy Wynette, 'Walking Back To Happiness' by Helen Shapiro, 'Always On My Mind' by The Pet Shop Boys, and 'The Policeman's Lot Is Not a Happy One' by Danny Kaye; S: no, I didn't know the second man; S: no, I couldn't hear what they spoke about because their heads were close together and they seemed to be reading the List of Records; S: yes, after the fourth record, The Man left the pub
and I joined Teri, who had been hanging about 'incognito', outside; T&S: yes; T: we started to follow him down Cockburn Street when Miss Bernie (sorry, Bernice) Westwater came out of nowhere and moved in front of us; S: without seeming to have noticed us; T: and began following The Man and we followed her; T: yes, we saw them go into the entrance to the Overhead Walkway at Waverley Station and she was; S: maybe 10 seconds behind him; T: no, we couldn't really cross straight away because of the traffic, it was mad just then; S: so it probably took a few minutes for us to reach the entrance;T: and when we got there; S: there was no-one to be seen; T: yes, we checked the stairs down from the walkway, but saw neither Miss Westwater nor The Man; S: yes, we were at the lift when the doors opened; T: and we saw Miss Westwater lying on the floor; S: I screamed; T: then me; T: yes I went to her aid while Sammy dialled 999 and asked for Ambulance and Police; T&S: no, there isn't anything else we can say – so we both signed the handwritten statement and said that yes, we would go to The Grassmarket and Community Policing Hub at early doors tomorrow, to sign the typed statement and look at any Mug Shots or CCTV recordings the entrancing WPC had found by tracing our route, together with the interior cameras in The City Chambers, The Malt Shovel and The Walkway, together, and perhaps, crucially, with that inside the Lift, and other than that they thanked us for being so open and honest, but warned us against following strangers around the city for it could so easily have been one or both of us in that lift, at which we both ran to The Ladies and were sick –
the image of Bernie sprawled on the floor, her life ebbing away, had been imprinted on our minds and would not go away for a very long time; and as my flat was the nearer we took a taxi back there and had a cup of Lapsang Souchong and sat huddled together wrapped in a blanket on the sofa feeling shocked and quite distraught, which is why we ended up cuddled up in bed with a couple of hot water bottles and each held tight by the other's arms, not for sex, solely for comfort and security and that was how it came to pass that we both missed all the radio and TV reports and woke up the next morning oblivious to the things that had happened during the rest of the previous day and night, probably the only two people in Scotland (if not the whole world) who had missed all the excitement!
We told our story, or at least it sounded more like a story than a factual statement: T: well, you know my name – oh, sorry, for the tape, yes, ok, right, no problem, sorry Isa, I mean Constable Urquhart – this microphone, right, yes, well I'm Teri, sorry, Theresa Somerville, I live in Souter's Place, off the High Street, you don't need my age or anything, fine, just thought I'd check, right, that's me, oh, sorry, well I'm a Freelance Writer and Blogger and part-time Lecturer in The Art of the Short Story; S: and I'm Sammy, oops, Samantha Linger and I live in Corstorphine, Rebus House, it belongs to the University, I'm a Reader in English Semantics and The Pedantry of Linguistics, oh, and we just met today – I've been following Teri's Blog, you know, The Adventures of Daphne and Maude, on Blogger and providing a commentary and analysis for my students on the Beowulf Cluster in the Department and thought I'd visit some of the locations for my research and, Wow, I bumped into Teri; T: oh, It was me who bumped into you, Sammy and knocked your coffee over; S: oh, sorry, right, yes; T: so you'll ask questions, Isa and we answer them – and are they open or closed, the questions, sorry, shut up Teri – I'm such a Gasbag; T: yes, we had followed a Man, though we didn't know who he was, or why – other than that he'd come out of Martin Elginbrod's Chambers and at that moment we had the wherewith and it was a change from the regular jog-trot, you know; S: no, we don't know Martin Elginbrod, personally; T: only that he is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma – or as one of the wee Montelimart sisters put it the other day, “a half-sooked sweetie, wrapped in a tissue, left in a trooser pocket an' pit in the machine on a boil wash – ye tak it oot an' say 'fuck me, wha pit this in ma pooch?'”; S: out of the mouths of babes and sucklings; T: they probably pick them up at school; S: swear words; T: no, sticky sweeties; S: yes, he was walking fairly quickly, kind of steadily, like a policeman, oops, I don't know why I said that, or a soldier, not festinating, but not dawdling; T: I don't think he stopped at all, until just when he came through the back door in Cockburn Street and we nearly bumped into him; S: so, that's right, we had followed him all the way from Elginbrod's to The Malt Shovel Inn; T: then only my Dear Reader, Sammy, had gone into the pub because I can't go in there, because, well, it's just that, erm (long pause) they use Palm Oil and I'm boycotting it; S: are they? T: yes, definitely; S: so I found a seat at a table fairly near the back where The Man joined another guy by the Juke Box and played a few records, which I recall were 'Stand By Your Man by Tammy Wynette, 'Walking Back To Happiness' by Helen Shapiro, 'Always On My Mind' by The Pet Shop Boys, and 'The Policeman's Lot Is Not a Happy One' by Danny Kaye; S: no, I didn't know the second man; S: no, I couldn't hear what they spoke about because their heads were close together and they seemed to be reading the List of Records; S: yes, after the fourth record, The Man left the pub
and I joined Teri, who had been hanging about 'incognito', outside; T&S: yes; T: we started to follow him down Cockburn Street when Miss Bernie (sorry, Bernice) Westwater came out of nowhere and moved in front of us; S: without seeming to have noticed us; T: and began following The Man and we followed her; T: yes, we saw them go into the entrance to the Overhead Walkway at Waverley Station and she was; S: maybe 10 seconds behind him; T: no, we couldn't really cross straight away because of the traffic, it was mad just then; S: so it probably took a few minutes for us to reach the entrance;T: and when we got there; S: there was no-one to be seen; T: yes, we checked the stairs down from the walkway, but saw neither Miss Westwater nor The Man; S: yes, we were at the lift when the doors opened; T: and we saw Miss Westwater lying on the floor; S: I screamed; T: then me; T: yes I went to her aid while Sammy dialled 999 and asked for Ambulance and Police; T&S: no, there isn't anything else we can say – so we both signed the handwritten statement and said that yes, we would go to The Grassmarket and Community Policing Hub at early doors tomorrow, to sign the typed statement and look at any Mug Shots or CCTV recordings the entrancing WPC had found by tracing our route, together with the interior cameras in The City Chambers, The Malt Shovel and The Walkway, together, and perhaps, crucially, with that inside the Lift, and other than that they thanked us for being so open and honest, but warned us against following strangers around the city for it could so easily have been one or both of us in that lift, at which we both ran to The Ladies and were sick –
the image of Bernie sprawled on the floor, her life ebbing away, had been imprinted on our minds and would not go away for a very long time; and as my flat was the nearer we took a taxi back there and had a cup of Lapsang Souchong and sat huddled together wrapped in a blanket on the sofa feeling shocked and quite distraught, which is why we ended up cuddled up in bed with a couple of hot water bottles and each held tight by the other's arms, not for sex, solely for comfort and security and that was how it came to pass that we both missed all the radio and TV reports and woke up the next morning oblivious to the things that had happened during the rest of the previous day and night, probably the only two people in Scotland (if not the whole world) who had missed all the excitement!
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