The Fall of the Romantic Dream
by Todd Harper
	

	I've got butterflies in my stomach.

	Oh, lord, Watching him standing there is horrifying. I'm nauseous. 
I tingle from head to toe. What will I say? What should I do? What if he 
doesn't like me? What if I'm nothing more than a sycophantic freak to him?

	The images of rejection in my mind are powerful, fierce, like stab
wounds with a rusty knife. The dark brown eyes will glare like spotlights,
endless pools of luminous hazel sending out scorn at terrawatt voltages.
The delicate, feminine lips will become a snarl, a sign of hatred.
"Begone!" he will shout. "Fie! Thy poetry and thy pretty words will not
avail thee here! Thou art not my type!"

	Physically, I will reel from the blow, hand to temple. Have I not
done everything to please you? Have I not adopted your dress of scarlet,
russet, and purest gold, that you would find me pleasing? Have I not
become practied, servile, and a master of etiquette? I have come to like
your "Getting Jiggy With It", your "Football", your "WWF Smackdown." I
have become all the things that you love so much, and you would deny me,
merely for an unfortunate trick of genetics that even now rises in thy
presence? For shame! Did not the Epicureans believe that the purest love
was borne from passion? Can you not see their wisdom?

	I say thee that they *DID*! Fie on *thee*, handsome brute! What
that you would crush me with your amorousness rather than thy scorn.
Still, your visage is beautiful; too beautiful. I cannot give it up. I
approach you. My lips are dry, my heart is open, my feelings true.
Hopefully, your words, words rolling off the perfectly formed lips, will
be as true.

	"Welcome to McDonald's...can I take your order?"

	I sigh. Damn. All that Shakespeare for nothing.



The Sunburst Project, Week 3
http://www.chaoseed.com/btr/sbp/
3/30/00