Spring Fever

(The following is something I call a storyseed. They amount to a few paragraphs to a page of a scene with the potential to be a story, whether short story or novel. I collect these in a file. Some I get back to. Some I abandon for months or years. This is one of the latter. It was intended to be a story about a shy poetry professor whose dying wife tries to matchmake for her future replacement.)

Spring Fever

by Joy Renee

Maynard Bloomingdale paced the perimeter of the room as he spoke, his words as measured as his steps. His attention to his words on a par with that of the class he was reading to from the slim volume he held. His eyes, like theirs, often straying to the patch of blue sky spackled by the pink blossoms and green leaves of the dogwood tree outside the window. His thoughts strayed to Bonnie, his wife of thirty years, at home and also separated by a window from the spring-spackled blue sky. This was the first spring she was unable to operate her electric wheel chair without assistance. Would it be her last spring? The MS she had battled for fifteen years had advanced an alarming distance since fall.

The door opened and slipping into the room on a blossom scented breeze was a lithe-legged, bramble-haired creature that Bloomingdale was sure must have sprung from his poetry fed imagination. A wood nymph if ever such a thing existed. His breath caught for an interminable moment as she glided into the nearest empty seat.

“So nice of you to join us, Miss…”

“Brooke.” she supplied. “Robin Brooke.”

“Ah, I’m sure Miss Robin Brooke you have heard often of the proverbial early bird and the worm.”

“Often and often Mr. Bloomingdale and I always thought the late worm would get the best deal of all.”

A gurgle of laughter flowed though the room and Bloomingdale felt himself blushing like a callow kid.