In which our hero and heroine almost meet

Advent Calendar

Chapter Two

Or it might be Chapter One (part two). In which our hero and heroine almost meet.

Mary had been on a lunchdate. Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Small Man."

In truth the lunchdate had started well. She remembered his deep, throaty laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. She had always craved the company of intelligent men and this one had spoken with all the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. But by three o'clock it was over. He was gone, unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can and she was going home, alone, where she would give thanks for some everyday things that she had forgotten to be grateful for like toilet paper.

A storm was brewing overhead. The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. Frightened by the hailstones that leaped around her from the pavement, like escargots when you fry them in hot butter but without the sizzle, Mary decided to take the shortcut through the park.

John saw her at about the same time that she saw him. For the briefest moment the thoughts tumbled in his head, jumbled like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. At times like this he regretted that he never took logic in college, just an introduction in high school. He consoled himself with the thought that even in a sewer, the cream rises to the top.

Finally, long separated by cruel fate, the star crossed lovers raced across the grassy field towards each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

An old friend

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to an old friend of mine. He's been with me now, somewhere inside my head, 24 hours a day for something like 25 years. Sometimes I think he's trying to drive me mad. Sorry but that's the only tune he knows. Some of you may already know it.