look upon the world

Mrs Flood rolled the blackboard up and she read again what Sally had written on it. She added some accents to some e's, she put a chalk line through les lettres francaises and wrote above, the word prèservatif. Then she pushed the board right up and wrote in large letters, bangles jangling in the silence, the words Look Upon The World With Love. Then she sat down at the table.

Write that down, she said, write it all down. Heads bent, you wrote it in your jotters, the words look upon the world with love, then you looked around at each other, and you carried on writing down the words on the board, the sex words Sally had found in the dictionary. You were writing until all of a sudden the Ark slammed the dictionary shut and said firmly, now, get out.

The World With Love was the first short story by Ali Smith that I read. It's still my favourite.
This week has been warm and lovely. My friend came into the common room this morning. We hadn't seen each other in a week and he said, "How are you? You look happy." Yes. I guess so.