THE EXPLOITS OF MY EXCITING MEETING WITH WRITER MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH IN A MOST UNEXPECTED MANNER THAT WAS UNEXPECTED!

So there I was shopping for books in a large bookstore, for it was my day off and I decided that I wanted to visit somewhere that sold books and a large bookstore seemed like a sensible place to go. I was busy perusing the horror fiction section (which was sandwiched between the erotic and vampire sections in a manner I found both obscene and thrilling) when I accidentally bumped into a well-dressed chap beside me.

"Oh, pardon me!" I said. "Sorry!"

"That's quite all right," the man said, stooping to pick up the book he had formerly held in his hand but had recently dropped to the floor from his hand, when I accidentally bumped into him whilst perusing the adjacent books. I immediately recognised him as being Michael Marshall Smith, author of such notable cross-genre books as Only Forward and Spares. I recognised him because he'd dropped one of these books, I forget which one, and it had fallen open on his mugshot.

"You're Michael Marshall Smith!" I exclaimed, in the hope that I had just cured some form of amnesia he may or may not have been suffering from. "I find your work to be imaginative and excellent, but not necessarily in that order. It's a real pleasure to meet you. But I have to ask: Why are you buying your own book?"

As he shook my hand he narrowed his handsome eyes and said, "I'm trying to convince this bookstore I'm more popular than that woman who writes the Twilight books. Maybe then they'll put in an 'alternate reality/sci-fi/fantasy/pulp/humour' section."

"One can only I hope, " said, nodding sagely.

"Wait a minute, " he said then. "You look awfully familiar. Are you Wayne Goodchild, otherwise known as Reverend Austin?"

Delighted, I couldn't help but beam like a hyperactive lighthouse, or a happy child full of radioactive fuel. "Yes, that's me all right!"

Once again shaking my hand he said, "I've heard you're a pretty funny guy."

"No," I said, "I'm not."

He went home disappointed.

THE END.