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.

another love story

It's not a big island. They call it the Big Island, but everything's relative. It wasn't so big that she hadn't heard his name. It was big enough she'd never met him. She was Buddhist, after all, and her friends came home with tales of him from their Christian church camp.

Michigan was smaller, really. There were only a few of them, so they'd joined the group. Love blossomed on the snow-covered campus that hadn't found root in the tropical soil. He studied metallurgy and put koi in the fountain. She learned how to teach and was never going home.

It's one of the first things they learnt as freshmen. Don't look new. Look jaded, cynical, even slightly bored.

She forgets it all as her head snaps towards the noise.

"What is that?"

"What?" asks her friend, a little deeper into the façade, and a little more intent on watching the shirts vs. skins game.

"Over there. What are they doing?"

She doesn't stay for an answer. Their movements compel her closer, their voices call to her without using her name, or even knowing she's there.

Her eyes dart around the scene in nascent panic.

"How do I sign up?"

"They said I have to go to computer class."

My father looks up from his paper. "I think you'll like it."

My mother nods.

I can't imagine what was in a scattered thirteen year old that could predict the obsession, the dedication of education, the insistence on taking courses not offered at her school, the monomania that didn't ease up until the end of her degree. Was it that obvious I'd be seduced by a combination of logic and power, wrapped up in a mystery of codes?

I suppose that's what parents do - see things they don't even understand themselves.