Welcome to Midweek Missed Connections! The (optional) setting this week: at sea.
What is MMC? Finish anytime Wednesday and post the link here or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan). Spread the word and have fun!
You sat beside me yesterday at the Requiem Mass. You were tallish, your voice vaguely English, your shorts blue camo, white tshirt, sandals without socks. I was the young widow wearing black. We were only six in the Resurrection chapel; you took Communion grazing my elbow but never spoke. You seemed like a tourist, arriving late and dashing away after, but you knew the words to the creed (rite I) and to everything else except the special bits in the leaflet I held, trembling, to share with you.
You smelled nice – understated, classy aftershave – your voice a comforting baritone. Standing beside you, I imagined for the first time that there could be someone else for me, someone my age, fit, groomed but not fussy, who would drop into such an old-fashioned church and join such a service of a sunny Saturday noon. Was it chance, or were you mourning someone, too? A parent, a friend?
You had the air of ex-public school prefect, since deepened, opened, and made more humble by life. I’d like to see you in linen trousers, an open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled up below the elbow, waiting on the porch, prepared to interview a tomboy in khaki shorts & scraped shins about where it is she’s been all day. Afterwards, we could concoct something in the kitchen with the strawberries that wanted eating.
Come back tomorrow for Mass at 11. Let me show you around town, and introduce you to…a couple of people.
Check out other missed connections this week:
Welcome to Midweek Missed Connections – the place where you get to write the enhanced account of that special someone you saw…and fantasized about…and never saw again.
Jessica wrote a terrific post last week about a missed connection on the Tube and all the marvelous thoughts going through her head. It made me think there should be a Missed Connections Plus section on Craig’s List where you get to lay out all your fantasies in addition to the basics. Then there is the fact that it’s such a long week between Ang’s Microfantasy Monday and Flash Fiction Friday. So, in the spirit of reaching out to new people, and submitting to the limits of a new genre, here you go:
Write a piece in the style of Craig’s List Missed Connections detailing not only who you were and who he/she was, but also what was running through your mind as you watched your target, or after you parted. Fiction? Non-fiction? Who will know for sure? Keep it under 250 words and post the link here or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan) anytime Wednesday. If you need inspiration, a setting will be supplied each week, optional of course.
This week’s setting: church.
Spread the word and have fun!
