Short story set in London

Ernest Hemingway’s friends bet him that he couldn’t write a complete story in just six words. He wrote:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

They paid up. Hemingway said it was his best work.

Facebook statuses can have  a similar terse brilliance, rather like haikus. This is a status posted today by a beautiful, very right-wing Romanian girl, who recently graduated from the University of London. It's much better than Hemingway's six worder, but it does use 105 words.

So I'm sitting next to a middle aged couple having their first date. The lady, which is dressed very well, is a single mom with a newborn in her arms. I sit next to them and I admire the baby, we start talking she says 'oh just have him' and she placed him in my arms continuing her date. He is continuously on his phone texting while she is ignoring her baby and asking her date if he had a prenup with his ex wife... Then he suddenly leaves and she pays the bill and takes the baby away... I am loosing hope in love.

Someone asked me if this were an urban legend (I have experience of those) but my friend, an honest woman, promises me she heard this yesterday.

Talking of haikus, dreary things we had to write at school when I was reading Byron in my spare time, it is one of the semi-religious duties of the Emperor of Japan to compose these. I always have in mind this one of Hirohito who sat on the throne when I was in my twenties.

We had intended

To visit the flower show at Kyoto

But were prevented by ill health.