Monday - USHER

There once was a man from Nantucket . . . this was more than just the beginning of a host of dirty limericks Oliv had thought up in her life. It was a mantra. Just the first line. She had never been to Nantucket, it wasn’t likely she ever would, but the mere fact that a town could be so libeled, so marred simply because of an unfortunate rhyme scheme, this seemed an apt parallel to the human condition. Take her friend Cecile’s ugly baby, for instance. That morning when Oliv was ushered  into the baby’s room, her first thought was that the baby really wasn’t that ugly. Her initial impression had been influenced by posted pictures with poor lighting. Oliv, however, had it set in her mind that the baby was ugly, and so even though her second impression was – “huh, not that ugly” – this only lasted a second, and then she began picking out irregularities in the baby’s appearance. Before Olive knew it, the baby was ugly again. Life was unfair. A name like Nantucket or a handful of poorly lit first pictures. Of such, sometimes, are unalterable courses set.