Simply Whimsy

"I know this is going to sound weird," he said, "but I think we were lovers in our past lives." I was standing in Bruce Maximus' office holding a folder with nine short stories and three illustrations that I was hoping he would accept for his Simply Whimsy column in his newspaper, The Mountain Gap Gazette. The column ran once a month, and every year he would invite writers to present him with twelve of their best efforts to make people smile, and from these he would select one to run for the following year. After years of building the courage to stand in front of this man to show him my spin on imaginative writing and illustrations, I was finally there, but the reception was not what I had expected.

"There's something about you. I can't put my finger on it," Bruce Maximus said. "When you, a complete stranger, walked through that door moments ago, the first thing that came to my mind was to hug and kiss you and run away with you." Before I had a chance to respond to his startling revelation about our past romantic connection, he continued on. "Did you see that movie with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour: Somewhere in Time? Well, at this moment I feel like a love-struck Christopher Reeve." 

We were standing facing each other in the middle of his office, Bruce and I, chin to nose--my chin to his nose. I'm short but he is shorter. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It's just that I have always preferred that my lovers to be taller than me with big muscles, Roman noses, lots of unruly hair and barbed-wire tattoos on their forearms. I know; I know...love comes in all sizes and shapes, so I shouldn't be so picky. But love is not what brought me to the office of the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Mountain Gap Gazette on this particular day.

"I was hoping, Mr. Maximus, that you would like my best efforts to make people smile enough to pick me this year," I said. Just an arm's length away from me, he stood completely still, except that he was breathing heavily and panting, so I guess he was not standing completely still, after all. The expression on his face could best be described as "desperately yearning." I wanted to tell him that I was forty years his senior; I wanted to tell him I was married; I wanted to tell him that he was wrong about us in our past lives--he surely had me confused with someone else--because I would never have sex with a short man. But I kept my mouth shut--did I mention that I wanted him to pick my best efforts to make people smile?--and I just listened to love-struck Christopher Reeve...I mean Bruce Maximus.

As if Bruce Maximus knew what I was thinking, he said, "I don't care about the age difference. Love has no boundaries." I guess if love has no boundaries, then that would mean tearing up a silly little piece of paper that legally binds two people together, like, for example, my husband, Tom, and me. "After all this time, fate has brought us together again," he said. "Now that I have found you, I never want to let you go."  I thought about Tom and how much I loved him and the life we had together. I thought about my dog, Maggie Mae, and how I would miss spooning with her every night. Could I leave them for Bruce Maximus? It would be hard, yes, but sometimes we have to make difficult choices in life; sometimes we must sacrifice to achieve our goals, and I really, really, REALLY wanted to see my stories and illustrations in the Simply Whimsy column of The Mountain Gap Gazette.

"Did you hear anything I just said?" he asked. His mouth was so close to my ear, I could feel the heat from his breath.

"Huh? I said and I'm pretty sure drool was running out of my mouth and down my chin when I said it.

"I'll be fishing until noon and back home around one," Tom said. "Oh, and you're talking in your sleep again, Sweetheart."