Um...P-C, I think I read more into it that I was supposed to. Or maybe I was just tired. But I actually truly think it's weightier than you're making it out to be.

Well...good, then! Because they always turn out less weighty than I intend.

And damn, ita, as usual.

Colin.

I'm not much for the fateful, but it was certainly quite the moment.

Farrell? Firth? ComaBoy from Everwood ?

Pfah on those Colins. This one.

The not-murderer. Not that ita's Colin particularly appreciates the homonymy.

I am surprised that so many of these fateful encounters are autobiographical -- it seems even moreso than other drabble topics. I cannot think of a single "fateful" encounter with a person that I recognized at the time, nor one I remember so clearly that I can describe it later.

Not that ita's Colin particularly appreciates the homonymy.

No, it works for him. Keeps him familiar, without him having to go on Death Row.

I don't have that many (if any) fateful encounters. But I might not be in LA if I hadn't met him, so I can keep that one.

Every time I try and make up a fictional one, it seems overdone.

One of mine was actually largely fictional. I took a feeling from one situation and spun it into another situation.

One of mine was actually largely fictional.

The WorldCrossing one, right?

Yep. Never heard of the place.

Anthony Jansen van Salee & Grietje Reiniers

He was young to have such wealth. He said he was Dutch, but he spoke with a Moorish accent. Son of a pirate, they whispered. Murat Reis, the Sultan's favorite, sending his son to the New World with pirate booty for a new life.

They said she'd lost her tavern job for being too free with the guests. A young man, inexperienced, eager for the world. A woman on her own, familiar with men and their ways. She caught his eye--or he caught hers.

They married on the ship headed west, raised hell and a family, died wealthy and influential, to the dismay of their neighbors.