Dev Dreams, Volume One by Ruth Madison Page B

sighed. “I never
thought I'd be sad to go back home.”
    “Oh yeah? What will you miss about
India?”
    Without hesitation she said, “You.”
    Adi looked up at her. “Really?”
    Sumitra sat down on the sidewalk curb and put
her hands on his knees. “Will you kiss me?”
    “Here?” he sputtered, “On a rural street in
India? There would be a riot, we'd get lynched.”
    “Guess we better pick this back up in
America, “she said, “Let me give you my number.”
    “Not to sound all self-deprecating, but I
usually have to work a lot harder to get a girl to kiss me.”
    Here was her moment. She had to tell him now.
She looked over his head, to the blue sky that looked exactly like
an American sky. “There's something you should know,” she said. “I
hate to have to tell you this, but I have this thing where I can
only be attracted to men with spinal cord injuries.”
    “Oh,” he said after a moment, “That was not
what I was expecting to hear.”
    “I'm sorry.”
    When he didn't say anything, she said
quietly, “How does your spirituality account for something like
me?” She hated the vulnerability of the question. She could feel
her whole body peeled open in front of him, exposing herself to the
pain of rejection.
    “We're all made in the image of God, that's
what I think.”
    “Really?” She dared to raise her eyes to meet
his.
    “We can't know what past actions have brought
us to our fate, we only have our present to create something new. I
wouldn't dwell on where it came from or why it is in you, just
decide to use it for a positive outcome.”
    “What positive outcome could I create?”
    “Love is always positive.”
    “Love?”
    “Just be open to it, you have the capacity to
love men who experience more rejection than acceptance. That's a
gift.”
    A gift. Sumitra smiled. Devoteeism had never
sounded so lovely. “Do you think the guru arranged for us to
meet?”
    “It's possible. He's like a conduit, bringing
elements together for a more fruitful future.” Adi gingerly took
hold of her hand between his thumb and the side of his forefinger.
“Trust the guru. Trust the universe. I'll see you in the
States.”
     
     
    Knight in Shining Metal
    (Also available as part of the short story
collection Paradox by Lee Nilsen http://www.paradevo.net/preview.html )
     
    Ricky knew he was going to regret this. Why
had his mother instilled such rigorous chivalry in him when no one
actually liked it? He had been watching a pretty girl sitting at
the bar when two large men honed in on her. Both loomed and teased
her while she looked frightened.
    “You should leave her alone,” Ricky said. He
had to shout over the pounding music. All three swiveled and stared
at him incredulously. One of the men started laughing. What else
could you expect when a man in a wheelchair tried to come to
someone's rescue? The girl, whose desperately unhappy face Ricky
had seen in profile moments before now looked at him with eyebrows
knit in confusion.
    “What are you going to do about it?” The man
who wasn't laughing said.
    The girl was watching. It was now or never.
Ricky pushed his rims hard and fast and slammed his wheelchair into
the man who spoke. Ricky wrapped his arms around the man's waist
and pulled them both to the ground.
    Adrenaline coursed through his body and the
blood rushed in his ears so he heard nothing around him. He had his
body across the other man's and was successfully holding him down
while the man's friend pulled at Ricky like a persistent fly. Then
security was there, snatching Ricky out of the fray.
    “Okay, what's going on? Who does this
wheelchair belong to?”
    Mutely, the girl pointed at Ricky, suspended
between two bouncers. They dumped him unceremoniously onto the
chair and gave him a shove out the door hard enough to throw him
back out of it. He landed on the pavement with a grunt.
    These days that's what trying to be a
gentleman got you. He grabbed his chair and hoisted himself