THE WALKER
Twenty-five year old Terry Moore was a successful software developer. Sadly, away from work he was a social outcast due to an acute inferiority complex.
He had no male friends and women were uncharted territory because he kept them at arm's length. His comfort was hill walking in the Lake District. Even there it was only polite responses to fellow walkers, never a shared cafe table or hillside chat.
Of course he didn't like the way his life had developed and eventually resorted to social network sites, allowing him contact without personal embarrassment. He chose hill walking as a common interest, with a preference for female correspondents.
A number of replies left no doubt about their devious intentions, while being less forthcoming about their orientation. It took a month of surfing before Susan appeared. She was twenty-four, a keen walker with a comprehensive knowledge of the Lake District.
They wrote for hours, with Terry developing a friendship that broke the barrier he suffered. They swopped head and shoulder pictures and Terry was bowled over by Susan's fresh beauty, it seemed impossible that she was still single.
The results were devastating. He couldn't sleep or eat. Cupid had fired his bow, supporting the saying, 'Love will draw you further than gunpowder can blow.'
From that point Terry tried his hardest to persuade his new love to join him in Keswick for an honourable weekend but she made a thousand excuses that sounded alarm bells. Was she a hoax, or a woman living within an unhappy relationship?
It was his IT skills that came to the rescue. He hacked into the website and found her address. It was a hundred miles away, so he booked into a hotel, in which he spent a tense night and in the morning drove close to her semi. Twenty minutes later an elderly couple left the house but seeing the curtains move he drew a deep breath, walked to the door and knocked.
Two minutes passed before the door was opened by Susan, she was in a wheelchair. Her face drained and Terry stood speechless. Eventually she resigned herself to the situation, invited him in and after an uncomfortable twenty minutes their conversation took on the freedom they enjoyed from home.
Susan had been the victim of a hit and run incident. She used the internet for her researched fantasy without thinking she would actually meet anybody. They talked non- stop all morning. The elderly couple who were Susan's parents came home and they all had a great day.
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Terry returned home on a rose-tinted cloud. Over the next few weeks his life changed, he lost his inhibitions, even women talked to him.
The biggest task was arranging to have his car modified for Susan's wheelchair and the controls adjusted to allow her to take up driving once more. Soon, living apart ceased to be an option, with wedding arrangements consuming the following months.
It was a wonderful ceremony. They considered going abroad for the honeymoon but instead they spent two weeks in the Lake District turning Susan's fantasies into reality.
Would you believe the sun shone every day?