Last Words of My Mentor, Dr. Warren Smetwarter

I’ll probably never forget what he said to me, but just in case I could someday, I’ll write it down before I do. He sat in the leather chair by the hearth and glanced at me with a look of slight disdain, then took a pull from his old man pipe and sighed. “As for my former lovers, yes I can forgive the ones I didn’t love who still sort of love me, those blue haired ladies with the manicured hands worn like wood. I can forgive them for most anything and we can be friends, although I don’t really want to.” Here he stroked his beard and again he sighed. “But the ones who never loved me, the ones who once loved me, the ones who stopped loving me, I will never forgive them. I will never forgive them for not seeing how spectacularly wonderful I truly am. They just have no taste whatsoever. And that, I cannot abide.” Then he turned away and immediately died. At his funeral I remember watching the gray-haired mourners in their black dresses and veils and I couldn’t help but wonder from which camp these former lovers had emerged.