{"id":4499,"date":"2012-10-25T09:40:07","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T13:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=4499"},"modified":"2012-10-26T11:38:53","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T15:38:53","slug":"a-chance-encounter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/a-chance-encounter\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiction: A Chance Encounter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At 4:15 a.m., the New Orleans\u2212bound passenger train made its scheduled stop at Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where I disembarked, along with several other passengers.\u00a0 I recognized one of the passengers as a student at Carey, which is a small liberal arts college I attend across town.<\/p>\n

Two of the passengers scurried to a waiting taxi and departed.\u00a0 I found a phone booth and starting dialing for a cab when I noticed the Carey student sitting on a bench near the loading platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you going to the college?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 She answered without looking at me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you like to share the price of a taxi?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll wait for the city bus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe buses don\u2019t run until 6 a.m.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at her in disbelief. \u201cDon\u2019t you think it could be dangerous waiting here alone?\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t answer, but her body language told me to back off.<\/p>\n

I finished dialing for a cab, which arrived within minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure you don\u2019t want a ride?\u00a0 I\u2019ll pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, at the college, I tried to forget the train station incident, but her unusual behavior had piqued my interest\u2014 to the extent I went to several places on campus in an attempt to discover her identity. Looking through last year\u2019s yearbook at the library, I found her photo:\u00a0 Marilyn Sue Blackwell, Tupelo, Mississippi, a sophomore majoring in sociology.<\/p>\n

After searching the campus for several days, I spotted her in the college cafeteria, dining alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay I sit down?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuit yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess you made it okay the other night?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here, am I not?\u201d<\/p>\n

I sat in silence, pondering what to say next, when I realized my attraction to her.\u00a0 After several minutes, which seemed more like an eternity, I blurted out the first words which came to my mind: \u201cOklahoma <\/em>\u00a0is showing in Thomas Auditorium tonight.\u00a0 Would you like to go with me to see it?\u201d<\/p>\n

She seemed confused and embarrassed.\u00a0 Without looking at me, she got up from the table and walked away. I sat there, thinking what I may have said to offend her, when I saw her returning.<\/p>\n

She stopped in front of the table. \u00a0\u201cI guess I at least owe you an explanation.\u00a0 To begin with, I\u2019m not usually asked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why. I was born this way.\u201d \u00a0She held up her left hand. Her thumb and index finger were missing and her other three fingers were nothing more than nubs. \u201cStill want to go out with me?\u201d\u00a0 I detected a note of cynicism in her voice.<\/p>\n

Oh my goodness!\u00a0 I had never seen such! \u00a0Imagine the comments people make when they see her hand. And the stares! They may even think she\u2019s some kind of circus sideshow.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to leave.<\/em><\/p>\n

But during my adolescence I had been raised by my grandmother who taught me axioms which had become so \u00a0embedded in my psyche I doubt if I could ever depart from them: \u00a0Among them were: \u201cIf you don\u2019t have something good to say about somebody, don\u2019t say anything. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. A soft answer turns away anger.\u201d But the one reverberating through my mind now: \u201cDo unto others as you would have them do unto you,\u201d prevented me from leaving.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I still want to go out with you.\u00a0 I would love to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re serious, aren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her countenance changed into a look of gratitude so sincere and genuine it must have come from the very depths of her heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI live in Bryant Hall.\u201d\u00a0 She grinned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be there at 7:15.\u201d I returned her grin.<\/p>\n

Then she strolled away.<\/p>\n

Fred Shelton lives in Roseland, VA, with his wife and four dogs.\u00a0 His non-fiction work has appeared in The Washington Times <\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>and Burg Magazine<\/strong>.\u00a0 His fiction has appeared in Dew on the Kudzu <\/strong>and Eskimo Pie.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 4:15 a.m., the New Orleans\u2212bound passenger train made its scheduled stop at Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where I disembarked, along with several other passengers. I recognized one of the passengers as a student at Carey, which is a small liberal arts college I attend across town. Two of the passengers scurried to a waiting taxi and departed. I found a phone booth and starting dialing for a cab when I noticed the Carey student sitting on a bench near the loading platform. \u201cAre you going to the college?\u201d \u201cYes.\u201d She answered without looking at me. \u201cWould you like to share the price of a taxi?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll wait for the city bus.\u201d \u201cThe buses don\u2019t run until 6 a.m.\u201d \u201cI know.\u201d I looked at her in disbelief. \u201cDon\u2019t you think it could be dangerous waiting here alone?\u201d She didn\u2019t answer, but her body language told me to back off. I finished dialing for a cab, which arrived within minutes. \u201cSure you don\u2019t want a ride? I\u2019ll pay for it.\u201d \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":4500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,200,219],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4499"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4514,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4499\/revisions\/4514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}