45 Minutes in a Frenetic Imagination

by Victor S. Smith

Because I had always liked the movie Amelie, and because a foreign city with a river in it seemed appealing, I suggested we run away to Paris when the waitress with the eggplant colored streaks in her hair said she was having a bad day and just needed a change of scenery. Seriously, I remember saying as she brought me a black coffee, you can go to the Montemarte or the Sacre Couer (which overlooks the whole city), you can see the Seine while you sip wine and eat ham and cheese on a baguette; it is, quite possibly, the most beautiful city in the whole world — no, the universe. I placed my order thinking of the two of us walking down the Champs-Elysees towards the Jardin des Tuileires; the Indian summer sun would be nearing the western Horizon as a slight breeze carried the smell of the river up the crowded city street; she would be holding my hand and resting her head on my shoulder. I ate my lunch and waited awkwardly, and blissfully in love, for the waitress — whose name I didn't know — to come back over and fill up my empty ceramic coffee cup: I started to get the impression that she was avoiding me when the stunted male bus boy came over and topped me off. "This is the last chance," I said when I handed her the black folder that had my credit card and the bill in it, "if you aren't careful, I am going to pay my bill and walk out of here and we will never see Paris." Luckily she declined my offer; when she came back she handed me the receipt and said, without letting go, "It would never work out, we don't know each other; we would be happy for a while but then I would squeeze the toothpaste the wrong way, or you might meet another waitress and I would be lost in Paris;" she let go of the receipt, turned away, and walked back into the kitchen stopping at a table along the way to package up the remains of a Monte Cristo.

6S - C1

Victor S. Smith has the fever for the flavor of a Pringle. He sporadically updates his blog Like Pollution and makes empty promises about posts relating to such outlandish topics as: Why "Big Trouble in Little China" is the best movie ever, and his 100 favorite songs of all time. He loves using two spaces after a period.