NOTE: This is a prequel set almost 19 years before the events of four previous stories of mine. There isn't a need to read this before the others, but it does spoil the shocking ending of the fourth published story.
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"Damn, I hate 35mm."
Hi, my name is Nick Meux, a graduate student in my mid-30s. It is hard to believe it is already February 1990. All this time and I am still doing grunt work. I am at the hometown of my father's family, one I seldom visit due to my father abandoning my mother when I was 3 after four years of marriage. Still, I feel a bond for the place.
I find it hard to attain a decent job, and getting too old for jobs that any schmuck off the street could get. Too much education or not enough experience...that is my curse. I've had only one girlfriend in my life, and that was a decade ago. I was too inexperienced to keep her. She wasn't much to brag about, but she was mine. That meant something. Now I must wonder if I'll ever find love again. Why does God hate me so?
Anyways, I am now at my ancestral hometown of Appleburg, a little town that in antebellum days was booming, until the last patriarch of the founding family, one Mr. Apple, was killed when an apple tree fell on him while he was having an argument with a woman visiting her son's grave. Some say the son's ghost, a Confederate soldier, caused the tree to fall on Apple. Some say the ghost still haunts the cemetery, waiting for something. I don't know if it is true, but it is a fun story. I take a few pictures and respectfully salute the grave; I don't want the oak tree now above the grave to fall on me.
Time to walk down the hill. I have a candy cane in my pocket, even through Christmas was several weeks ago, and pondered sucking on it. I'm hungry, but the nearest McDonald's is 15 minutes away, and other food joints are further. Best to go ahead and finish taking these shots. I prefer using a 110, but the clarity of one isn't good enough for slides. I wish there was a way to have cameras that are essentially small computers, but that is not likely to happen. After all, my home PC had a whopping 640K; how could anyone use more than that?
This is a pretty area; too bad it's not more populated. Just a few hundred people and a bar. I wish I had come a few months ago; this would have been pretty with fall color. I do wish there was someone nearby; I'm feeling lonely.
Hello, what do we have here? I see a young girl painting the creek bed. She's a cutie, with her long brunette hair and shortness. She may be 5 feet tall, but not much more. As someone who's 6'5", I look down on most. I accidentally stumbled, scaring her.
"Oh my God!"
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you." I hope I didn't frighten her.
"What are you doing here?"
"Just taking a few pictures for a future book. Nice artwork."
"Oh, that. Thanks. I find being amidst all these pines to be inspiring."
There was something strangely familiar about her, but couldn't place it; something about her voice. A sweet voice, but she had some kind of speech impediment made her stumble on some words. Then again, I have the same problem.
"Shame you didn't get here a few months ago; the fall color must have been lush."
"I like it better this way. Getting the winter view, I can later do revisions of it reflecting different seasons."
"Quite ingenious." I meant it. She intrigued me.
"You're a high school student?"
"WHAT!!! Oh, sorry. I get upset about that. Everyone keeps treating me like a little girl. I'm 20."
"My apologies; by the way, my name's Nick."
"Mine's Natasha. My family keeps calling me Tasha, but I hate that. Natasha is more grown up."
"Nice to meet you Natasha. Been painting long?"
"For 5 years. I've been able to concentrate on it; lack of a social life will do that."
"No social life? A cutie like you?"
She blushed. "Boys my age go for huge tits, and the few who don't go for legs. I have neither, so they give me no attention." She looked again at her painting. "It's done now; I wish I didn't have to walk home." "Well, I'd be willing to give you a ride, if you are willing to accept a ride from a stranger."
She looked me over. "I guess you are trustworthy enough. Who knows," she said is a flirtatious manner, "maybe you can make up for calling me a little girl by taking me out for lunch?"
"Sure thing." I haven't much money, but as this would be the closest I have come to a date for a decade, I couldn't pass this up. Having been raised a gentleman, I took her art paraphernalia for her, and escorted her up the hill. I was starting to lose my breath.
"C'mon, old man. What's keeping you? "