Lovely Lines

When Madame la Pompadour saw me, she zoomed in

admonishing: You are NOT to read or listening to your  

earphones – Yes, Your Majesty, I meekly acquiesced

and took my place as far away as possible from the strict

Madame and the rest of the Royalty, kept my delicious

book firmly closed – I’m reading “Making Money” by Terry

Pratchett and reached the bit about the cabinet that has

not been designed by a girl between four and eleven as it

contains all colours except pink – the hallmark of youthful

femininity – and started to study the Departmental Diary

issued to all officials, delighted with the daily meditation

or maxim at the top of each page: ‘Beauty is not what you

see but what you dream’ – yuck, say my colleagues, how

syrupy, yum, says my own mind, how just like I feel; then

‘Kindness is to love people more than they deserve’ – there,

now I can love my colleagues again, even if they abhor the

words that make me glad, ‘The true measure of a person is

how he treats someone who can do him no good’, perfect,

now I shall be kind to my colleagues who cannot recognise

the beauty in these lovely lines…