My story is mostly true, I believe.
I remember the incident in question and quite
well too because it all seemed so plausible at the time – as it was happening,
I mean to say – only to then seem utterly ridiculous later on. In retrospect.
I remember a walking stick. A perfect walking
stick. The, even. Surely finer than
any walking stick in fiction would be. In fact, were this story not true, I wouldn’t
mention the stick at all. It is, after all, completely tangential to my story.
Yet I remember thinking, Where could one find a branch like that ever, so wonderfully suited for
being a walking stick?