‘I’m going to ABBA tomorrow’, he said
Fantastic, I replied. I’d heard
so many good things about the show,
and how the holograms seemed so real.

Not having seen the gig myself,
and wanting to add to the conversation,
I started to talk about a show
that I’d just seen the night before.

I saw a jolt upon his face,
a mental change of gear, but ever
composed and mindful of the other,
he quickly engaged with what I’d said.

Realising, perhaps, that I had moved
too quickly from his coming joy,
I returned the conversation to
our quartet of Seventies songsters.

His features creased a merry crease,
‘I must have miscommunicated,
I didn’t mean the sequinned Swedes,
but Aber as in Aberystwyth!

The moral of this mutual blunder?
The danger of assuming shared
perception, a common understanding,
obvious isn’t always so.

A comic conversation from this morning that makes a perfect illustration.
(23.11.25)

© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Andrew Ebrahim on Unsplash