Fresh Yogurt   (Excerpt)

By A.F. Winter

(Francis, an insurance salesman has come to the Harry and Jennifer Benton's home to sell them an insurance policy.  He asks them how they fell in love.)

Francis: So what happened? How did you get together?

Jennifer: (Warmly) He wrote me poetry.

Francis: Oh, are you a poet?

Harry: Hell no, I’m an accountant, worked with numbers, not words. Never even liked reading the stuff!

(Francis looks puzzled. Harry takes a deep breath, then lets it out like he was about to explain the universe to a three year old.)

Harry: Love, love makes you a poet. It turns the ordinary man into someone special. It makes the little things exceptional, the touch of a hand, a smile, the fullness of her lips. It is like a curtain opening up to reveal God’s true nature after spending a lifetime thinking it was something entirely different. And you say, so that’s it! I was wrong all this time. This is love, not that other thing. You’re like Buddha under that tree receiving enlightenment. In a flash you are changed forever and you never look at life or people the same again.

Francis: Wow, you are a poet. Do you still write now?

Harry: (Motioning to the table on the terrace.) Only in pebbles.

Francis: So did he write you poems every day?

Jennifer: (Taking her lover’s hand.) Only one day, only one. That was enough.

Harry: We were walking in a park on a Saturday. We had been talking at the office and liked each other, understood each other. We also talked on the phone. I never talked so much. But office politics being what it was, we kept our relationship on a strictly business level.

Jennifer: I liked him a lot, but never thought it could be anything more than a friendship. I was hurt by my first husband. I was never enough for him. I tried and I tried but he looked outside of the marriage. I was still living with that pain when we met. I wasn’t ready to let go…………. So we were in the park.

Harry: We were in the park. It was a beautiful day and I was feeling happy just being around this beautiful woman, just being alive. There was a cool breeze. It was late October; right after the leaves had lost their color and fallen to the ground. I said, “This is a day that poets write about.”

Jennifer: (Falling into the role.) Oh, so you are a poet?

Harry: Never wrote a poem in my life, but for you I would write one.