Prayer in the Meadow (Krell)

Julia surprised me by giving me a quick hug as if I were her boyfriend.

At that very instant  I realized that Julia and I were totally different. Her embrace felt to me like the kind of embrace a cat would throw on a mouse if the cat and the mouse were about the same size and if they were standing on their hind legs and if the cat was wearing Scarlett O'Hara gear and the mouse had just finished eating a submarine. The mouse might try to put his arms around the cat but since the arms of the cat are so much longer than the arms of the mouse, his embrace would be considerably less determined than hers; as was my embrace of Julia.

Even as I held on loosely I could sense that Julia was not above stealing apples to get her free ride to skull island. I thought she might look real good strapped to a stone altar. I figured that she was the kind of woman who would make a tiny man live in a dollhouse until she accidentally knocked him down the cellar stairs and assumed he was lost in the flood.

That's when I sensed her moving away from our embrace. That's when I felt her lips brush against my right cheek.That's when she lifted her chin, tilted back her head, fluttered her eyelashes and closed her eyes.

I'm no gentleman.

I did the same thing.

As we both tilted our heads in opposite directions, I had a moment to think. If a photographer came by and snapped a picture of the two of us at that instant, the picture might look as if we were praying.

I know this is true because a photographer did snap a picture at that moment and a week later it was published in the paper above the caption, Prayer in the Meadow. In the picture Julia looks a lot like a female praying mantis.I look like the male mantis who an hour earlier had been telling his mantis friends "Man, I'd love to be torn limb from limb by that."

Back in real time, I opened my eyes, looked down at Julia with her pursed lips and realized that I had one more chance. This time, I took it.

"No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

Julia whispered "But Dubya, I need a little kiss right now"

Damn, she had given me yet another opportunity. I took it.

"That's your misfortune".

I broke from her embrace and started heading North.