Waltz for a Night

I once met a guy. This time younger, two years. He reminded me of two things. All younger guys remind me of my kid brother, it's creepy, but that's how it is. Plus, he had the name of one of my ex-flames. So most of the time I had to avoid taking his name. That ex-flame affair was pretty recent I must say, I had to save this guy's number in my cellphone with a different name because even the sight of that name caused quite a flutter.

We worked in the same place, stayed in the same place, that meant commuting together. I met him at work too, sometimes, we had breakfast together, he drank milk and I sipped espresso and we talked. Staring out from the glass walls of the cafeteria, trying to guess the weather outside. But that was much after we met. I will tell you how that happened.

Everyday, we took the same bus, rushed to cross roads, waited for the traffic to stop, together. But being me means avoiding others, so we never cared to talk, until one day. Until one day, when both of us were terribly late for work, and being a stranger to the city, I had to take a bus I had never taken till then and thought it would be good to confirm with him that the bus would take me where I had to be. I talked, because I would've been screwed otherwise. There was such a rush inside the bus, he helped me get in, made space for me to stand, and then got me a seat too, paid for me as I was fiddling inside my bag for my wallet. Gradually, we got talking, first about work, he worked two floors above mine, but whenever we were in the elevator together, I would somehow always get confused about his floor.

My two extra years of life, I don't know if that made me look more erudite, but that was his way of reaching out to me. To fill the gaps in our initially guarded conversations, he would ask me about my work, about how he should look at his, and that somehow made me feel somewhat more confident with him, like I had an edge, of two extra years be it! And as my internship was about to get over, he thought we should have dinner together, to seal the affair. My response was affirmative.

Post dinner that night, he asked me if I smoke. I told him I didn't mind him do it. Then we had donuts with our hands, as copious chocolate sauce oozed out with every bite, I ended up licking my hands, and kept going as he looked on. It felt different to play a kid with someone younger.

We always look for a connection with the person we want to be with. A connection in which we complete each other's sentences, think alike like we have telepathy. All our lives we do that, keep looking. Only sometimes do we find such people, but we firmly believe that with time, like all other people who ever connected, our connection too would fade and we would end up hating each other. So we take our chances and call it off. And then we have to live with an excuse, with people we never connected with, for the fear of dying alone.

But this guy I am talking about, on the walk back that night, asked me if I knew Waltz.