Possessed by Gilbert Gottfried

Story Sent in by Jim:

I walked with Patricia one evening, before dinner. We were on a boardwalk with shops and restaurants, and a beach that sloped down to a big lake.

I was excited to be meeting her: we had spoken for a while, online, and shared in a series of bizarre coincidences. For instance, she stopped working at my company a week and a day before I started working there. We went to the same college, far from home, but had never met. She could do a flawless Gilbert Gottfried impersonation, as could I. As we walked, we even made each other laugh with it. It was classic.

We had met up at 4:30, so it was a little early for dinner, but after a while of walking, I suggested that we grab a bite. She asked me where I had in mind to go, and was in the middle of spelling out some nearby options when out of nowhere, she turned to the water and screamed.

What a scream it was. Was she being murdered? Other people who were out and about stopped and stared at us. She shrieked for five of the longest, most confusing seconds of my life, then bolted down the beach and toward the water.

I ran after her, and she stopped right at the water's edge and stared out, jerking her head back and forth, across the water, like she was scanning for something she had seen.

I asked her what it was that had set her off. She asked me, "Did you see it, too?"

"See what?"

She looked around for another moment, then her whole body seemed to relax. She turned to me and said, "Nothing. What did you want to do for dinner?"

I don't know how they do things elsewhere, but from where I hail, when someone screams and runs toward a body of water, an explanation is necessary. I asked her, "Did you scream and run at the water for any particular reason?" When I glanced back up at the boardwalk, a handful of people had clumped to stare back at us.

She replied, "No, it was nothing. Dinner. Where do you want to go?"

We picked a Greek place, ate, and she even kissed me goodnight. Despite that, all I could remember with any detail from the experience was the sound of her scream, and it was all I heard when I thought about reaching out for a second date, so a second date never happened.