Date

She removes her sunglasses and shoves them in her bag. He catches her eyes, for the first time. Looks away before it gets uncomfortable. She gets into his car. Her red heart, is about to burst. He says something about the other car, the one he couldn't get. Instead, he had to get this one. The older one, the crumbling one. Some excuse. She's not listening. She is floating on cloud 9. He throws a bunch of chocolates at her. Nonchalantly. The ones he had gotten from his last trip. With no particular girl in mind. But he knew he was going to fall in love that summer. Hot summer of 2003. She was eighteen. He, twenty-one. His bloody hyphenated existence. 

They walk into some restaurant, after a little dialogue over choosing that place over another, and another over someplace else. In the glass walls, they see each other, side by side. Juxtaposed human specimens. Pretty divergent. In their corner table, he orders pasta. She asks for a coke. He says she should eat something. But hungry is the last thing she is. Her stomach is full of butterflies, already. 

Waiter comes back, says the guy that makes pasta hasn't come so early in the day. He chooses a pizza from the one page menu. She helps him pick it. Suddenly they have nothing to do. Their heads are empty. They talk of the heat of summer. And how the roads have gotten better over the years. And other illogical nonsense. 

Later he pours ample amounts of ketchup on her slice of the pizza. Thin crust, strewn with peppers. She takes those few seconds to look up at his downcast eyes. Is this it? Or probably not. 

An hour later, he drops her off at the same place. It's a milder afternoon now. There is no need to hide behind sunglasses. She stands there, smiling with her naked eyes as he pulls away. Knowing that this is it. For them. It it.

They are, dated forever. 

4 comments:

Blasphemous Aesthete said...

Nice one, but I always have a 'but' in your case.
So...
But what about the other side of the story? The guy's story?

Cheers,
Blasphemous Aesthete

wildflower said...

That 'but' is always welcome, but this is the closest I could ever get to the guy's story till now.

I have narrated this exact Incident numerous times on this blog with varying degrees of severity. This is just the latest. Let me distance myself from the Incident a trifle bit more, may be then, I can try again. To get closer to his story. Probably. Let's see.

Merlin said...

Sounds familiar... except for the forever part

wildflower said...

Doesn't to me either.