Mister Big









I am at a production meeting with an editor - Al fresco. 
That's not his name, we were outside - 
He has taken a photo as I sat down, which flummoxed me a tad. 
He laid an arm protectively around the giant Canon with the zoom lens and conducted the interview looking at his notes, and at me, over the brim of his cup and spectacles.
In the middle of ranting about something or nothing ,I spotted the guy at the other table.
Tall, long hair, waistcoat, bannoffi.
He had eyes like those weird blue crystals and I was giving him the bambi's AND loads.
Every throw away remark was for his benefit.
I saw him laugh into the cream a few times, and once he blew the froth off his cappuccino with a snort, which he turned into a cough.
By the time the editor had looked at his watch 7 or 8 times, I had him hooked.
The editor legs it in a flurry of brief cases, camera straps, and apologies.
"Well. that went well, eh?" I said to the man with the Lapis Lazuli eyes.
He almost chokes.
He has teeth like Tom Cruise.
You could probably see them from the space station.
I am blinded by the light.
He tells me he is going to the beach with his dogs.
I hear myself say "Can I come?" as if I am having an out of body experience.
He smiles, I blink, he says "Sure"
"Let me just get out of this palava" I gesture to the suit and boots that I have been suited and booted in.
His eyebrows lift.
"I live around the corner and will just put on something more suitable for prancing around on a beach with springer spaniels " I say and leg it to don green Doc Martens,jeans and a poncho.

He tells me he will get some coffees to go.
Good man says I, and tell him to make mine a double espresso.
Dear reader, I interject here only to stress that I am not a cougar/maneater ( well, not much ) but that I was positively delirious about the idea of a beach and dogs.
It was only when I breezed around the corner on the way back that I saw him standing up.
Sweet Merciful Christ.
He is a giant.
From my vantage point, everybody is tall.
I have been known to get calls from frantic pantomime managers if a dwarf gets the consumption at Christmas.
I have to stand on a chair to get a glass down from my kitchen press.
But this is not tall, this is OUTrageous .
His head is higher than the frontage on the shop.
I almost collapse.
"Name of God, what height are you?" I shout up at him, like he hasn't heard this a bazillion times.
"7ft 4", says he, "and I'm the smallest in our house"
He has a sense of humour too it would appear and so I inform him that we will look like the circus is in town.
"I can double job as the bearded lady as well as the midget" I say as if to inform that any romantic entanglement of any magnitude is totally out of the question.
I mean, really.
7 ft 4 ? Come on. 

He tells me where he is parked and I lead him unerringly to his vehicle.
Of COURSE it is a purple camper van.
"How did you know that" he asks in amazement.
"Oh, just a hunch" I say, throwing myself in with the blanketed apeshit dogs.
He plays cool music as we drive and I see the books strewn around the back seats, and it gives me a moment to ponder my afternoon.
Half an hour ago I was being professional (ish) at a meeting and now I am going to a beach with a giant stranger in a purple camper van.
I made him take me to a waterfall where I lay on the grass and tried to exhale and meditate with the hydrotherapy, but all I could think about as I looked at the length of his back as he stepped across the stones was
"Where the hell does he shop for shirts?"
There is a Pixar Sunset on the way home and the beautiful town is spread out like a dark necklace on blue cloth, the lapis lazuli backdrop with the church spires framing it, end to end.
I live under those spires, I say and jump out at the traffic lights at Dunnes roundabout when he leans in for the kiss.

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