This or That

(But never those!)

There was a kind of hardscrabble unworthiness to the banker Reginald Kirk Plummings, a sort of wheezy cheerfulness that left others ruminating on mistakes and bad breakfasts. Yup, people often walked away thinking of eggs that were just a bit too runny, toast that arrived too late, soggy and limp. The butter never goes on as well and when the knife bursts through the bread, well, let’s not speak of it. “Reggie” to his “friends”, but never to his mum, who always called him Reginald Kirk or Reginald K. for short. You know, although it seemed like a good idea at the time, the mustache had been the wrong way to go, facial accoutrementwise. But, and this was mostly due to the way the human brain encourages one to keep digging in spite of the huge heap of nothing already found, R.K. went all in on the mustache, even curling up the ends (or trying to) with the very cheapest and oiliest of the hair goop. A Dapper Dan Man he wasn’t. Yes, Plummings had the misfortune of being the type of person, not hated exactly, but simply generally unwanted by those around him.

Oh, it wasn’t all bad. He did enjoy his evening sudoku and mug of mint tea (when he remembered to drink it and hadn’t left it, forgotten and cooling, on the kitchen countertop). His umbrella, he was quite fond of it. And nothing quite got his blood nearly going like watching the squirrels race by on the telephone wires outside his flat.

I wouldn’t say it was a good life or a bad life. It was a life. It might have been sad but for Reginald’s profound lack of self-awareness and one day a piano fell on him and he died.

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