She smiled that smile again and my heart almost melted. “That is amazing Allen, you see my dad’s name is Allen also”. So where are you heading? I didn’t answer right away and she said, you see that large brick building with the really cool breezeway that is where I am going this morning”. When she said that my heart did a double flip, and I finally stammered that this too was my destination. It was then like a song bird when she chirped and said “you know, this must be the hand of fate Allen, for there are bigger things in this world than you or I.”

I managed a half smile not knowing what to say since I vividly and with sudden urgency recalled what I thought was a one way conversation I had with God just last week. She was so pretty and sweet. She had a quality about her that oozed innocence. I was taken with the gentleness that fell from her lips when she spoke.  I tried not to let myself go there with these thoughts, but I could not help but wonder if this was the woman that God had sent me to give that big ole heart of love to.

She looked at me and half winked and then smiled and said, “I’m not usually this forward Allen, but something inside of me says that you are OK…after all, I was always taught not to talk to strangers, but for some odd reason I feel as if I already know you…you want to go get a cup of coffee before they open the doors”?

I would have gone to the moon at that point if she had asked me. I had already forgotten that I had to open the tool shed for the rest of the grounds crew at 8am and now it was almost half past eight. “Sure I said, but can you just give me a couple of minutes, I need to go give a friend of mine some keys…I’ll be right back so don’t go anywhere OK”?

She nodded her head and smiled and as I ran towards the maintenance shed out behind the large office complex. I did this with a step in my gait that I had not had since I was a teenager. Wow I thought, she is just like an angel and she wants to have coffee with me…God, I am so sorry about not thinking that you heard me the other night. She is perfect Lord. Just as I was nearing the shed, a little voice popped into my head and literally shouted…” She won’t be there when you get back…she was just leading you on…all those sweet and pretty ones do that you know”.  As I got to the doorway of the shed I saw Donnie and a couple of the other guys leaning against the wall puffing cigarettes and giving me that where the…have you been look. I just tossed Donnie the keys and said open up for me, something urgent has come up. He reached skyward for the flying set of keys dropping his smoke and before he could say anything I was sprinting back to the front of the office complex praying the whole time that she would still be there.

When I rounded the front of the building I did not see her and my heart sunk. The nagging little voice in my head piped in…”I told you so”. Suddenly I felt crushed and foolish. I had let my desperation to share my love with such a creature as this so overwhelm me that I let my heart runaway with reality. I started to turn and walk back to the shed when I heard my name called out ever so softly. I looked into the direction of the sound and saw her kneeling in a large flower bed over next to a weeping willow. I threw up my hand and took off once more at a pace that would make any Olympic sprinter envious. When I arrived almost breathless I saw her smelling each flower one by one. She looked up at me with eyes bluer than an October sky and simply said…”Pretty…Pretty”

I was hooked…and I was hooked badly.

To Be continued  9/19/08

J. Allen Wilson 9/18/08