The Other Day.

The other day, I ran into her parents. Them, who I had barely met when we were us, seemed to have aged twice as fast than they would have, had time been more merciful. After a moment's raw hesitation and an unsuccessful attempt to flee the spot, I stood with the poise of a man and approached them. Her mother blinked at me, with faint recognition. With a bravado I was unaware I had, I introduced myself as a friend of their daughter's. A friend they had never known of. She welcomed me with a confused but affectionate smile. I hadn't expected much anyway. She had shrunk from the photographs of the steadfast woman I had seen in the pictures I had been shown, a couple years ago. I greeted the father similarly, the lines on his face had become more precise. Those dictions of his which she would tell me over and over again, repeatedly, and never tire of, hardly ever left my mind those days. Like her father was permanent company, always watching over her. In a moment's notice I was carried away, wondering what kind of an alternate reality would it have been to actually have been a part of their lives. It's funny in a way, whatever the wish that did not fulfill. Whatever the love that vanished, passed away peacefully like death from senility. I always told her that she looked like her mother. She could never catch the parallels though. And would argue that even though they might look alike, as a person she was quite the antithesis of her mother. Like she was selfish and aloud, inconsiderate and obstinate. Quite the contrary to her mother, quite the contrary to any decent human being, quite the contrary to the beautiful person I sometimes saw in her.

I ran into her parents, the other day. But not a word was spoken of her.

..