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“Friend you’ve got to remember to forget her! You know full well that most women are only short-term soul mates. Besides that last one had your heart in a headlock and your libido in retreat!” Fritz was a master of the ‘knocked down get up and get over it’ philosophy.

“Why don’t you come with me, to Paris - shake off this sadness and pick up something to roll between the sheets with?” He was also a master of bending people to his plans. You could fault his effort and I can’t admit that they didn’t resonate with my recovering libido.

“You can get back to the male imperative mate! Fulfill your intent need to fill.”

“There’s too much I haven’t done, kid.” I say, mournfully.

“Who you calling ‘kid’ - I’ve got five on you and had more than double life’s lessens weighted on me.”

“And I’m no ‘eunuch’, though you call me so often enough!” I half-yell.

“Enough name calling, you know my heart is full of you.” As observed, Fritz always had a way with empty sentiment, but this struck more of half-truth than full falsity.

I could tell that Paris would be a strong contender to reality.

After that small semblance of brotherly unity we felt the need to imbibe. We fall on a bottle of whiskey. Our glasses chiming with a quart every quarter of an hour. Fritz made a joke of it.

The claws of the male imperative gripped me and implored me to explore catharsis in company. What roused in me was the thought of someone I’d been introduced to recently. A woman I’ve only seen a picture of, that captured something in me - to the extent that I sent out a letter of longing.

Her name was Echo. She had a condition that saw her at any moment removed from herself. The onset of a waking dream. Often beside herself. Two reflections of a self unresolved to what ‘self’ is. So that one version of her is cracking jokes and sparkling - whilst the other has a thumb stuck out to be picked up by reality.

I’ve fallen in love and even star-signs seem to correspond.

But what do I know of love? All I ever learnt about it was from Fritz! At least I know to have misgivings. I’ve not inherited his foolhardy approach. Leap and then sleep with her is his idea of courtship. If he fits, he’s her soul mate. Plain and simple. All else waits for the recount of the tale, or for its visible failing.

Plunging into a sea, with wax wings smoldering - Fritz is washed up onto a foreign shore and sets about building a jet engine instead of a boat. There is no limit to his amorous ambition.

No, Echo seems like the reply to a cry I have made long ago. So much my own voice shot back at me. I’m still stunned that I’ve found this, so shortly after such heartache.
How could I run to Paris when she is here? It would only be more wax-wing madness. I’d end up selling myself short, if I restricted myself to the ‘male imperative’. So I’ve fallen for Echo inside a few weeks and we plan to meet.

Decision made but not fully financed. We plan to be beside ourselves.



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