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This report is taken from PN Review 212, Volume 39 Number 6, July - August 2013.

Completely Wrong
(A True and Terrible Tale of Old Kelvinside)
Frank Kuppner
Oh, this wonderful, unending search, my fellow creatures of fantasy, for what we couldn't possibly find! Yes, yes. All right then. Let's see what we can do here too, shall we? Just suppose for a moment, eh, that there was once sort of a young man, a kite-flyer, perhaps even a brick-laying, non-breeding hotel-owner and/or quantum physicist - certainly no lighthouse- or (perish the thought!) brothel-keeper, and assuredly not yet 65 (never mind, say, a mere 56) - who (sneezes) was just about to take a (voluptuously?) recently acquired copy of Sir Isaac 'Skirtchaser' Newton's Principia Whateveriana out of the Instytution­ ally Inappropriate Behaviour Section of the local Existian Exquisitely Advanced Semi-Public Library Ping - when instead - ping! - it suddenly crossed his mind, such as it was, that for some reason or other he would much rather carry on through into the small but nonetheless more than half-real public park several miles away - (even further in kilometres) - and, once there, either search Proustianly for more comparatively fresh dinosaur, er, footprints - bless them! - or, just possibly, seek to render somewhat uncomfortable by means of an almost comically intense facial expression - (joy? fear? lust? disgust? - perhaps even all five simultaneously?) - the first self-evident existential success whom he might chance to meet, coming down towards him on one of the many fine, healthy, interlinked, essentially quasi-physiological pathways of that tremendous or simply tremulous locality, quite independently of what sort of (garish, parish, rubbish or) stylish ...


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