[This is the first thing that I've actually been able to finish in ages. Be
kind. But not too kind.]

Canticle I
----------

    I always find myself smiling whenever I read about someone saying that
they'll never forget the first time they saw the person who turned out to be
their one true destined love. Because I really don't remember the first time I
saw him. I mean, I remember that he was there, but I can't remember thinking
"Oh, there's someone important." He could have been part of the furniture for
all the interest he aroused in me.

    It's not really surprising, I suppose. I wasn't looking for someone to
love. I never had, although there had been occasional dalliances of a number of
gender-flavors. (Never you mind "with whom". I'm not going to name names, and
you should know better.) Again, the romantic cliche would have me always being
aware that no matter who I was with, he or she wasn't "the one". The truth is,
I didn't really believe in love. Desire, yes, and caring too, but not something
so vast as what the poets mean when they talk about love. I've never trusted
poets. Blame my upbringing.

    Thinking of romantic cliches and first meetings makes me wonder ... what if
star-crossed lovers had met before they "met"? By that I mean their dramatic
first meetings, the ones that get written about. They could have met as quietly
as a glimpse on a crowded subway platform.

    In the stories, when that has happened, it always comes up. But I don't
really believe that could happen. In any given day, a person might see hundreds
or thousands of people; how many of their faces do they remember, later? More
likely, the drama of the first "real" encounter crowds everything else out.

    I guess that must be the way that it is for me, because I certainly can't
remember what his face looked like the first time we met. (I can imagine, and I
think I'm pretty sure. But who knows -- I could be wrong. First time for
everything.) And most of the other times, I only remember how I was feeling,
not anything about him.

    But I do remember the look on his face when he took my breath away. Dirty,
sweaty and tired, his face still managed to look more ferociously alive in that
moment of consummate triumph than I'd ever imagined anyone could look. In that
moment, I think, I saw deeper into his heart, and by extension the collective
heart of his people, than anyone had ever seen. He was a person, and they were
a people, who would fight, and suffer, and toil, and sweat, and never, ever
give up until he and they won. Caring and desire and wonder filled my heart,
and I finally decided that the poets had understood what they were talking
about.

    And then he topped it all off by yelling, "At last I can be married!"

    I still think it's the best proposal I've ever heard.

    I'm weird that way.


Author's Notes:

Many thanks to Lois McMaster Bujold for the expression "gender-flavors".

_Urusei Yatsura_ was created by Rumiko Takahashi and brought to North America
by AnimEigo and Viz Communications. This story, while incorporating elements of
a film or magazine held under copyright by others, is copyright 2001 by C.
Richard Davies.

Nobody sue me okay?




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
	     .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'