Prompt: Non-fiction
Title: Gorillas
Once upon a time there was a little boy, who lived in Seattle. One day his mother asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. The boy thought carefully, then answered, "I know I cannot be, but I wish I could be a gorilla."
Years later that same boy and his family had a getaway cabin on nearby Bainbridge Island. The weekend he and his family were to visit, they had heard the scotch broom (a wild flower on the island,) had bloomed and there was going to be a parade. The boy's mother had made the boy a gorilla costume and decorated the bike so he could be in the parade.
At the same time, there was a little girl on the same island, who also wanted to be in the parade. She borrowed a gorilla mask. Just as the parade began, someone said..."There is another gorilla." The little girl turned to see a boy on a bike wearing a gorilla suit. "The boy on the bike said..."Oh, you are a gorilla, too..." And kept going. The little girl thrust her hand out to call out, "Wait!" But he was gone into the sea of revelers.
Many years went by and the boy moved to Bainbridge Island. He went to the same schools as the girl, but they never met. Then in his final year, they saw each other at a HS dance and started to dance together, neither one asking the other to dance. The boy said, "My name is Todd." The girl said, "I know." She never met him or knew his name, he just looked like a "Todd" to her.
Many years after being married to Todd, the girl saw a movie called "Serendipity." The girl thought, if serendipity was real, she would have married the boy on the bike, who wore the gorilla suit.
Many, many years later the little girl, now a woman with 2 children with the boy, Todd, who was now a man, was looking through a family photo album at his mom's house. There was a picture of a boy on a bike wearing a gorilla suit. She asked if he was in the scotch broom parade wearing the gorilla suit, he said he was. She told him, I was the other gorilla. "Oh," he said, "you were standing by the department store on the corner..." They hugged, not only because serendipity was real, but because they were the gorillas.
