by Chris Fletcher

Created on: November 03, 2008

"I'm just not sure what I should do, okay?"

Taken out of its current context, such a statement could be thought of as something serious. The house is burning down with my baby inside and...; my father had a heart attack and...; the aliens have arrived to abduct and violate all our virgins and...; you get the idea.

These were the thoughts going through my head as I sat there listening to this woman talk. There weren't any emergencies. No fires or alien invaders, but thinking about them was certainly more interesting that what she was saying.

I tried to figure out why I couldn't focus.

It wasn't the restaurant. We were seated in a corner booth, away from the kitchen and bathrooms. There was muted but sufficiently romantic lighting, with calmly twisting shadows dancing quietly in corners the candlelight strained to reach. The tables were only about half occupied, I guessed, leaving more than enough room for the smartly pressed waiters to glide among their patrons, writing this, refilling that and fetching the other. The food was astoundingly good and reassuringly expensive. I had no idea what any of it was, since the menus were in French, but that was only a minor issue.

So, not the restaurant, then.

What about my day so far? No, it couldn't be. I had not slept through my alarm and the trains had been right on time. My boss was out of town on another of his "business trips" (by which, of course, I mean "trips to conduct unsavory, debauched business with one of his mistresses") and so today's workload had been light and relaxed. Our local bar had not been too crowded at lunch, and the afternoon had flown by in exactly the same way Friday afternoons do not. The evening commute home had been effortless.

So, not my day either.

"I mean," she said, breaking my reverie for a moment. "My landlord can't kick me out because my lease is for another nine months, okay?"

"Of course," I replied.

"And it's just a dog, okay?"

"Right, yeah."

"So what if he never said I couldn't have pets - I have one now, okay?"

I wasn't paying attention. I guess her landlord didn't like the idea of animals, and she had gotten one anyway. That's about as much as I could digest before my brain wandered again. I still couldn't focus, and not being able to work out why was becoming slightly frustrating.

What about the woman herself, then? This being our first date, and a blind one at that, I gave her a subtle but thorough looking over.

She was rather good looking, I would say. Half-Asian, (although which half, I

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