"The Last Blind Date" by Véronique Aglat — Our December 2022 Bronze Medal Winner

Véronique is our third place winner from the contest posted in our December 2022 issue!

What the judges had to say:

“I enjoyed the humour in this piece. The use of dialogue was done well and the story had great pacing!”

“One of the biggest strengths of this piece was the dialogue; it felt natural to the characters and natural overall...”

“There are so many clichés that could be relied upon when writing a story about blind dates and rainy movies scenes, especially one backed by pathetic fallacy. This short story manages to avoid all of them, and to be surprising funny, and relatable. I enjoyed witnessing this date go awry, the tension between the sisters and the ending. There is no “moral” to this story, but it’s packed with meaning. Thank you for sharing your story with us!”

Meet Véronique

Véronique Aglat lives in Montreal, Quebec, with her husband and one surviving son. She has published short stories in Canada, the United States, England, and Australia. Typically, she finds inspiration in natures but has lately become interested in philosophy. She is working on a novel.

The Last Blind Date

the unedited story by Vérnoique Aglat

"In the movies, it never rains a little," I explained, using my hands. "Droplets vary according to pressure, nozzle size, and sprinkler height. It's impossible to produce a drizzle. I've tried bigger pipes and different materials to reduce friction, but the actors always get drenched."

My fingers fluttered, drawing words in the void as I talked. I was obsessed with this problem and challenged to my professional core.

"I’ll never watch a rom-com the same way,” he said.

I didn’t know if he was kidding or not. Maybe it was his greasy hair, 3-day beard, or stained t-shirt, but I couldn’t imagine him crying over The Notebook.

So, I laughed. It’s what women do on first dates. Men joke, and women laugh at everything they say. It’s a bird’s dance, heavy with non-verbal clues, where sincerity is optional.

Then, he surprised me.

“Let’s list types of rain!”

He had told me he was a “pre-published writer”. Perhaps there was more to him than I gave him credit. He pulled a fancy leather-bound item from his back pocket, with a tiny pen tucked in an elastic band that doubled as a page marker.

“I’ll start,” he said. “Pouring!”

He wrote it in his little book.

Disappointing.

I said:

“Purple!”

“Good one!”

A pink wave blushed his cheeks.

What was I doing? Simple hygiene seemed challenging to this man, and I was being cute. The little book had to be a trick. Something he read on a dating blog like “How to woo women.” Shameful. Where did my urge to be considered as a potential mate come from? The lizard brain?

Please, don’t say wet, I thought.

“Wet!” he triumphed.

I got up.

“I have to go,” I said.

I threw a twenty dollar bill on the table and walked up the restaurant aisle in long, ungraceful steps.

Once outside, in the yellow glow of streetlights, I shook my head.

Dodged a bullet, I thought.

The phone rang. I answered.

“So, you just walked out?”

My sister. Married, two kids, living in domestic bliss, she’d been trying to set me up for the last ten years. This was my 24th blind date. Why do I let her do that to me? I wondered.

“I am not feeling well,” I mumbled.

“Let me guess? Too tall? Too ugly? Too handsome? What is it this time?”

“He looked dirty!” I exploded. “Not in a good way! Plus, he was an idiot.”

The wind picked up, and the cold wind slapped droplets on my face.

“Susan! When was the last time you had sex?”

I was not a prude, and we had talked about these things, but I resented her using it against me.

“I work in the MOVIE industry, remember? I could get laid three times a day,” I said with a chopping gesture.

The rain started coming down hard, so I slid under the protection of a decrepit awning.

“But you don’t,” she said with finality.

A fat raindrop bounced off my shoulder. A few meters away, the world was a shimmering curtain through which I discerned vague shapes; a white cab splashed a wave at a fat woman, a tall, elderly man held a chihuahua under an umbrella, my date jogged off to his car half a block away.

I returned my attention to the phone and to my sibling's whining tirade:

“But, I don’t understand: What kind of men do you LIKE?!”

Any second now, I thought.

“Are you gay? You know you can tell me, right?”

Bingo.

After that, the failed-date conversations always went the same way, and I had developed an automatic response where my brain engaged minimally. I nodded verbally at the right pauses and promised to try again while my attention slipped away.

At first, I ignored the large drops that fell on my head. The water rolled down my neck and onto my back, icy for a second, becoming a tickle as my body warmed it up. Not a bad sensation.

Eventually, I looked up.

By then, my sister was entering the second chapter of her exposé: “When you’re married, you always have a +1.”

The street light fell through the awning revealing a constellation of pinholes. Its fibrous plastic had dried out under the constant assault of the sun, and pigeon droppings had done the rest.

My sister was winding up her last argument, the killer: “who is going to take care of you when you’re sick?”

I wanted to yell: A doctor! But I had tried that once, with no success. I respected her need to raise a family and her good heart. Why couldn’t she respect my desire to focus on my career?

The solution to my rain scene was right here above my head. Without thinking, I hung up, put the phone in my pocket, and ran a short minute to my workshop. I had chosen the restaurant for its strategic location.

Once inside, I stretched fabric under my pipes and pumps and sprinklers operation. Then, I turned the water on.

And there you had it. Vary the holes' number and size in the material, and you can finally modulate the rain scenes, no matter how hard it’s raining above.

I immediately went to work on a patent application

I would make millions and give a bunch to my sister’s family.

And I would never go on a blind date again.

Use the comment form below to let Véronique know what you thought of her story.