Chekhov's Mongoose - Salt Electronic Poets Author:Tom Shapcott This is "an old story". Twenty-three years later, he sat on his bed in the dark in the same room. Like irridescent dust, his hair now covered his body - shoulder, belly, and of course the luxuriant beard. Only his skull was hairless, nothing would alter that. For twenty-one of those years, he had looked at each mirror and always the verdict : go... more »ing gone. There was the cheval-glass in Madame Veronique's salon - she called it a salon - and the gold framed Verseilles monstrosity of his ambassadorial days, that had been an indulgence. More important was the small steel mirror - army issue - it was still close to hand, had he needed it. Like a blue army in the green heat, it had multiplied in his mind over the years and always with the same curse: twenty-three years will pass, and you will be back to where you started. Slowly, he got up off the bed. He reached for his razor.« less