Dolphins (standard:non fiction, 1336 words)
Author: Dave	Added: Jul 15 2006	Views/Reads: 3124/2010	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The first story I wrote and ever published on my website. This is a reflection on a childhood memory and its connection to a relationship that was new at the time.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

instant reaction to the matter, and those few seconds of silence were 
the longest I've ever had to endure. 

It was over. I had shared myself, my most personal thoughts, with my
fraternity brothers. I felt so relieved to have heard each brother's 
darkest secrets, their most personal moments, and to have shared my own 
with them as well. The way in which we made light of our complexities 
was invigorating and relaxing at the same time.  I went to sleep that 
night feeling closer to those people than I'd ever felt with anyone, 
and to this day it still stands as the most prominent experience of 
true brotherhood I've experienced.  The next day, I awoke still feeling 
quite refreshed.  I thought of the day that I might actually have a 
companion to frolic with, like the dolphins I remembered from years 
ago. 

*** 

I had taken to meeting people on line. It was a foolish practice,
considering the type of people that AOL had delivered to me thus far. I 
got on line this particular day, just like any other day. A random 
Instant Message was quite normal, and I thought nothing of it. We 
probably talked for hours on there. They had been impressed with my 
open-book mentality, and I had been impressed by the fact that they had 
lived in LA. I'd never actually been there, and wanted to know more 
about it. Somehow, we spent about 2 minutes on LA, and just kept going 
from there. We met that night. 

Up pulled the car, and out popped this magnificent human being. As I
walked toward them, my mind went blank, and I was no longer thirsty. I 
was amazingly nervous, and they could tell. They did their best to make 
me more relaxed throughout the night, and my anxiety wore off fairly 
quickly, although the Mt. Dew probably gave off the opposite 
impression. We spent 5 hours together, talking about things that people 
talk about on the 7th or 8th date, not the first. We shared things 
about our parents and our pasts, and everything except for sex, 
although we did share stories about previous relationships. We clicked 
on so many levels, and I decided that this was the type of person that 
I wanted to have in my life, even if it was only as great friends. 

As we pulled away from the coffee shop, where our adventure had begun, I
expected the car to fly past me. I'm the kind of guy that sets my 
cruise control just above the speed limit, so people tend to flash by 
too quickly to even flick me off. Somehow, though, his car refrained 
from simply zooming by. One of us would drive a little ahead, and then 
the other would take the lead...never quite parallel for any length of 
time. As I pulled into my turn lane, we waved goodbye, and I thought 
about those dolphins, and wondered what this new friend might be 
thinking. 

© 2002 Dave Szumlanski 


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