Waving Not Drowning

The salted, butter drenched, artery clogging, heart attack inducing popcorn cost almost twice the amount of Greg's ticket but this is a special occasion, a once in a lifetime chance to see his favourite film digitally remastered on a top of the line screen in a plush rocking chair seat complete with a talkback, no less. This is akin to any other monumental life changing event like marriage or death. At least in Greg's world. Movies are the most important thing in Greg's life, next to sleep. Or bananas. Movies shape Greg's entire being. Not the most socially well adjusted of children, Greg escaped into the land of imagination though movies. Only child, broken home, mom remarried an asshole, dad dated and disappeared, blah blah blah. Greg found solace in matinees and vhs tapes. Seventies icons, '80's teen angst, old school classics. Fellini, Peckinpah, Coppola, you name it, Greg's seen it and can recite by rote. He started writing for his high school paper, c...

He wasn't feeling well but it was too late to cancel. At least in Greg's mind it was too late- and not the gentlemanly thing to do. He'd just explain why he couldn't shake her hand and would avoid any sort of intimate contact. Not to assume he'd be getting intimate, he wasn't that presumptuous. He's not a hop in the sack first date kinda guy. Who was he kidding, of course he was, given the right circumstance. Who wasn't, right? God, if any woman Greg met on a first date wanted to sleep with him right there and then he'd be so completely flummoxed he wouldn't know what to do. Greg liked the pseudo anonymity online dating provided. He could sculpt an ideal version of himself over days, weeks, months, while secretly trolling through hundreds of other profiles, stealing the best from other guys' identities. He doesn't do well with people. He lumbers and speaks slowly. His body is average at best assuming average means lacking grace and all sp...