Style

Albert Camus

She-who-must-be-obeyed has been called for jury duty.
I have already served my time in durance vile, as one calls the enormous waiting room wherein the jurors-to-be toll the weary hours. Actually, the room is not enormous. It is, in fact, a bit smallish for the sharpers, grifters, lounge lizards, and dainty housewives gathered together, rehearsing their lines for 12 Angry Guys And Dolls.

She read the instructions, which extend to the clothing to be worn.

"No Camō...," she said, long "o".

I roused myself from selfless somnolence. "Camou?" I asked.

" Camō," she said. People today call it "camo..., long 'o' ". Even children are dressed in camo.

I thought back to World War I. " Camo, camou, camə...,"

the last being that universal "uh" we use so much: "cam-uh" as in "cam-uh-flage".

I decided to use "camou" for "camouflage" as well as "Camus" as in "Albert Camus", l'Algérien.
So I decided this winter a coat with enormous lapels would be my fashion statement, my Camou.
If on the very remote chance someone were to sidle up to me and ask me to envy them their new camo togs, I would look at them interrogatively, asking where the big lapels were!

"Montag, everyone say 'camo'. How can you expect to relate with the readers of your blog if you insist on being so bizarre?"

I smiled.
"Anyone who reads the blog, reads it because it is different. Everyone has a thousand several writers writing about the mundane things they already have too much of....,"

I trailed off, thinking.

"I want everything to be different and fabulous."

She googled, rustled papers, then harrumphed.

--