YOUR SUNDAY MORNING READ or The Walk-to-Win Writing Workshop Challenge

His face had paled at the sight of her. For so long a part of his dreams and subconscious that this reality was total disbelief. It had been years and she was not altogether the person his memory had encapsulated. Time had made changes to her face, her hair, her body but above all, there remained her. Looking directly into her eyes, time evaporated and all the recollections of being together came thundering forward in his brain. A lifetime, or so it seemed, had halted in a moment. Yet, here she was in flesh and blood bringing the sense of old connections without understanding of this new veneer of change.

Cemented in time, he could do nothing else but stand mouth agape. She acknowledged him with the slightest flicker of recognition. So slight, that only he saw. Was it in his imagination? Regaining reality, he managed an answer to the colleague standing at his side. An answer, he knew had no bearing on the question but was accepted nonetheless. The whole evening took on a surreal quality of friends talking about topical events, food and drinks being handed around, laughter and quasi-intelligentsia. He spent the time searching for her amidst half-drunk colleagues, completely drunk friends, a throng of acquaintances and unknown faces, and at the same time, attempting to give credence to why he was here in the first place. But he never stopped looking for her. Once or twice he caught a glimpse; the top of her head or the back of her edging to a doorway. His attempts to be close to her were always thwarted by five-line deep, free food-and-drinks hangers-on.

This party for more than a thousand guests was totally business. Why else would you be in their company. A total disaster by his usual standards of working the room. His traditional schmoozing had been non-existent and subsequently showed no signs of baiting the next client. He could handle that. After all, everyone has off-days. TO BE CONTINUED NEXT SUNDAY OR PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IN THE COMMENT. IF IT FITS INTO THE STORYLINE, I'LL POST IT NEXT SUNDAY......... ALSO, BEAR IN MIND THAT THE FIRST LETTER OF EACH SUNDAY READ WILL BE A QUIZ ..... AND THE WINNER (WHO CAN CORRECTLY PROVIDE THE ANSWER) WILL BE THE PROUD OWNER OF A PERFECT PAIR!!