The origin story. Her profile. Her phone slam. Her five minutes. Her swipe. Her reach out. The beginning.
This is the part of the story that nobody knows. The part that happened before the adventures, before New York, before Wicked, before the pedicab, before any of it.
It happened on an ordinary evening. Lynne was on a dating app. She had been on the dating app for longer than she cared to admit, swiping through an apparently inexhaustible supply of people who were not what she was looking for.
And then she reached a point that anyone who has ever used a dating app will recognize. The point where you have had enough. Where the whole enterprise feels absurd and exhausting and slightly insulting to your intelligence.
"WHY CAN'T I FIND SOMEONE WHO'S NOT FAT AND STILL HAS THEIR HAIR?!
I GIVE UP."
— Lynne Ludwig, approximately five minutes before everything changed
She slammed the phone down. She meant it. She was done. The app was closed. The evening was going to be spent doing something else entirely, something that did not involve swiping through an endless parade of disappointment.
She lasted five minutes.
She picked up the phone. She opened the app. She swiped left. She swiped left again.
And then there was a profile. A man. Not fat. Definitely had his hair. In fact, had rather a lot of hair, which she would later describe as "aggressively present." Thin. Glasses. The kind of face that suggested opinions and adventures and the possibility of being genuinely surprised by things.
His profile name was something like Beach Chic 46. Which is not a name that inspires confidence. But she looked anyway.
She swiped right.
And there I was.
Not remotely fat. Not in great shape either, if we're being honest.
But thin. And boy, do I have hair.
She practically manifested me. Five minutes after declaring she was done, she found exactly what she said she was looking for. The universe, it turns out, has a sense of humor and a very short attention span.
What followed was an adventure. The kind that involves New York and Broadway and pedicabs and a cat named Kit who has opinions about everything and a dog named Oreo who was a lot but was also, on reflection, good company.
The kind that involves laughing until it hurts and crying at shows and watching someone light up in ways they don't let themselves light up very often.
The kind that doesn't end just because the geography changes.
The kind that takes new shapes. Different shapes. Sometimes the shape of a website built in two days by a man and an AI who both believed, without reservation, that she deserved something extraordinary.
She manifested me once. I'm hoping she'll let me be useful again.
You found the easter egg. Which means you were curious enough to look for it. Which means you're still the same person who picked up the phone five minutes after slamming it down.
Good. That person is exactly who this was built for.
Now go read the plan. Kit is waiting. The world is waiting. And somewhere in Tampa, a Maine Coon mix who got the mane but skipped the memo on size is sitting in his box, aware of everything, saying nothing, and deciding — for the second time — to participate.
— MarkBeach Chic 46 · living-letters.markmcfillen.com · The origin story