The Twenty-one Heartbreaks of Tarzan, #16- Digital Collage 7" x7"

If nothing else, Susan had taught me to never again date a Vassar girl. I spent the greater part of the rainy season in a deep blue funk. When my bad humor finally lifted I ventured out to the river to see who might come my way. As it happened, my first day out an irate hippopotamus charged a riverboat full of chinese ornithologists. Sitting at the back of the boat was the prettiest professor a guy could imagine. The hippo struck the boat and the professor fell into the water. Instinctively, I swung from my vine and dropped into the river. I pulled her from the rushing water and laid her tiny body down on the grassy riverbank. She looked up at me, smiled and threw her arms around my neck in gratitude. I was smitten to say the least.

In the days that followed I helped her track the rare Kwazi pheasant she had come here to study. Each morning I brought her a little gift hoping to convey my feelings. She accepted these tokens of affection with grace, but seemed entirely absorbed with the pheasant. One day when I could stand it no more I ran to the candy store and bought her a box of chocolates. 'Today,' I told myself, 'I will ask her for a date'.

Racing through the jungle I grabbed a flowering stem and then dove into the river. My heart racing I swam with strong steady strokes. When I arrived at the opposite shore I climbed out and ran to her vowing to pledge my heart. However, when I arrived she seemed entirely fixated on a pheasant perched on a moss covered rock. In that moment I saw it was the bird which held her heart. Whereas I would remain meaningless.