Two American ladies, possibly on loan from the Eisenhower administration, having coffee in a Dublin café on a rainy Thursday morning
“One of the heads of the FBI. He can do whatever he likes.”
“I know! But it’s going on now for who knows how long and despite it all he seems such a romantic!”
“And he brought flowers to her room and champagne in a bucket oh my. And there was a wine-tasting with a hundred types of tequila in a secret place.”
“Where was this, in the desert?”
“In the desert. A hotel in the desert. A secret place. She said if you had looked in the meeting room you would have known all the faces from CNN. A hotel in the desert. The FBI. And champagne!”
“Oh the romance!”
“I know, but you know romance isn’t just confined to the opposite sex. Poets have written of the romance of the high seas. There’s romance in the sea.”
“Oh the sea! I love the sea! Was this by the sea?”
“The sea? No! This was the desert. A secret place.”
“How do you mean the sea?”
“Huh?”
[Noise in the café, eavesdropper momentarily deprived of story]
“I said did you ever hear a the word human beings? He said of course I heard a the word human beings but I don’t think he did. He didn’t understand what the word human beings means. He didn’t understand that passion leaves damage. Passion always leaves damage.”
“I could a told him about passion! I can remember passion! I can remember the damage too. The damage.”
“That damage cannot be undone. I tried to tell him but I don’t think he understood.”
“They never do, do they?”
“Never! But what is so nice now is that though we never speak, there is a real warmth there, unspoken, in the eyes.”
“They say that! They say the eyes have it. Or maybe that was the Ayes?”
[More noise, then they actually sing hymns at each other and then return to the matter of their friend with the G-Man]
“He was a hugely physical man, a brute, but his soul, oh his soul! His soul was an unpolished diamond. Like that hotel. A secret place in the desert.”
“They go in the pool at midnight and just look up at the stars.”
“That’s what I want. I want a pool at midnight, looking at the stars. I won’t settle for anything less.”
140 characters is usually enough 