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It was on a train between Paris and London. She was reading my favorite book and I the newest book by her favorite author, we agreed that this was clearly a case of a book recommending a person.
It was on an airplane. Their nerves made them talk and my boredom made me listen. I held their hand and heard a detailed account of every relationship they had ever had, before I even knew their name.
It was in play group. Our mothers would sip lattes, while we rolled around on the ground and pulled each other’s hair. All these years later we sip the lattes, otherwise not much has changed.
It was at a convention, he was dressed as the Ninth Doctor and I Rose Tyler. He grabbed my hand and said “run” as he dragged me towards a TARDIS photo-op prop. How could I resist that?
It was a blind date set up by mutual friends. We ended up debating Russian literature, Marvel vs. DC, summer and winter, bread butter side up or butter side down, and American film all before dessert came.
It was in a college. We had two classes together in a row. We always spent the walk between them chatting. They liked to keep me on my toes and never let me get away with easy answers.
It was in a crowded coffee shop. The only seat left near an outlet was at the table where she was sitting. I boldly offered to get her a refill on her drink in exchange for the space at her table.
All of these stories are true stories. They are just not my story.
If a monkey typing for an infinite amount of time will someday produce Hamlet. It follows that infinite universes will produce all possible stories.
The truth is, I mostly just sleep on planes and trains. I never went to play group and have never been to a convention or on a blind date. College lies far behind me and I flee from crowded coffee shops.
The truth is, how we meet may be one of these, or none of these, or maybe we won’t meet at all.
So in all this I remind myself that:
All fiction is memoir published in the wrong parallel universe.