After posting several AOKs with my handy iPhone app, I realized that these AOKs, these brief glimpses into each other’s daily lives, serve the same function as some of the best fiction: they show us how similar we are, how our day-to-day is full of opportunities to put a smile on someone’s face, and help us to remember that, as Oprah preached for the last time on Wednesday, not a’one of us is ever alone. Sappy, yes. But gosh, AOKs are great, and so sometimes I must wax poetic. Oprah’s great, too. But alas, all good things…In keeping with the brevity of most AOK acts and observations such as, “Gave my last onion to my flatmate who needed it for his recipe,” and “Invited a stranger to join me for lunch,” you can imagine my delight when I happened upon a little book called Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer. Edited by Robert Swartwood, this exercise in brevity was undertaken by literary luminaries and their aspiring counterparts. The story I opened to that made me want to own this little gem? Written by Jess Row, entitled “A Quiet American:”

       He realized, taking a long swig from his beer, that no one had told

him whether swallowing the octopus was guaranteed to kill it.

Awesome. And an instant reminder that I may still have watermelon seeds growing in my stomach from swallowing them 15 years ago. Yikes. Even more awesome? That AOK about inviting a stranger to lunch told a whole tale in just 8 words, and it’s not even fiction.

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Social experiments rule, even more so when they’re free and facilitated by my eye-phone. +10 bonus points for looking sexy and hailing from Britain.The Situationist.

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The Missed Connections section on Craigslist never fails to fascinate, entertain, or amaze (let’s just say some lack, um, subtlety). For the uninitiated, Missed Connections is a portion of Craigslist where people post messages to memorable strangers they have no other way of getting in contact with.These Missed Connections are especially fun when they hit close to home, so to speak, and you realize they’re happening in places you recognize and even frequent. Suddenly, there’s the chance that someone has taken notice of you. A friend and frequent browser of the MC section was completing her usual morning Coffee Bean run when she spilled her entire soy latte all over the coffee bar. Tiny but full of fury, this friend unleashed a few expletives. She drew enough attention to find a reference to herself on the LA Missed Connections page that afternoon: “M4W: You are a small, angry, brunette…”For some, these little notes conjure more than just images of familiar haunts. Check out the artist Sophie Blackall’s lovely illustrations, inspired by some of her favorite Missed Connections posts.We here at AOK often refer back to this idea of “missed connections,” not only because the AOK concept involves reaching out in small ways to people you don’t know, but also because we want to turn those missed connections into made connections. When a moment to help someone out presents itself, even if its just offering a few pleasant words, that AOK encouragement enters your mind. The AOK community will be there to celebrate you when you succeed, and it will be there to encourage you when you fail. Because there’s always more chances to connect.

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This Is Water.

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