Portia

My name is Max Mayer and I have “borrowed” disassociated, so I can write this. Well, Mr disassociated seems to have gone AWOL, so why not? Anyhow, film aficionados will know me as one of the leads in the spectacular (if I say so myself) movie, from 1996, L’Appartment.

You know I am the guy who is about to get married, but on the eve of an important business trip to Japan “finds” a woman, Lisa, who I was dating several years earlier. It just so happens that Lisa is the one.

And only.

Somehow things went really funky and we lost each other two years earlier. Or something.

So, I put everything on the line to actually make contact with her. My upcoming marriage. My job. The contract I am flying to Tokyo to negotiate.

Yes, all that goes out the window in the name of one woman, and the far flung notion that I may be able to get back with her. “The One” can have that sort of an effect on a person though, can’t they? Haven’t we all been there… um, once before?

Anyway many of you aforementioned film aficionados would recall the rather tragic conclusion to my quest. So close, yet so far. What was I thinking when I was trying to fish that key out of the drain? Why wasn’t I paying more attention to the entrance of the travel agency?

I might have seen… her.

Well I moved on. As we all (yes, all of us) do. I moved to London. It seemed logical. Fate took a number of twists and turns, (as it does) and lo and behold along came someone else. And so she disappeared as well. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson, wouldn’t you?

But, than again, what can you expect of a serial monogamist?

And here I am, now, in Sydney. And guess what? It has happened again. All of it. I was walking along the street one afternoon and there she was. And I knew. Her smile told me.

Due to various “mitigating” circumstances, I lost “contact” with her. *Cough* Somehow. And I only ever knew her first name as well. How on Earth would I track her down in a city of four million people? If she was even (for all I knew) still in said city of four million people?

Well, I’ve done it before, haven’t I? There are eight million people in London. Hell, there are almost 12 million people in Paris. Sydney should be a piece of cake, shouldn’t it? That’s what you’d think, isn’t it?

And… you’d be right! I’ve done it again. I’ve found the girl. I think. All I had was her first name. Perhaps I should be a private investigator? What do you think?

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Always.

In a bizarre twist of fate, she now works in a place I used to visit now and again a few years ago. How’s that for fate coincidence? All I have to do now is work out how to “appear” there. I need an alibi. That’s all a minor detail though, isn’t it?

Well?

Where’s Mr disassociated when you need him? Doing the same thing as me? Perish forbid! But maybe he knows what to do in these sorts of situations.

Bah, but who needs him? I already had a plan worked out within seconds of “re-finding” the love of my life. After all these kinds of things tend to come naturally don’t they?

I have shite load of work to do. Hmm, I hope she’s not married or anything.

Oh…