Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Beware of Pedestrian.
There's this sign as one drives out of the building that houses my gym.
"Beware of Pedestrian".
It always cracks me up a little. Mental images of a huge foot stomping the car as I drive out...
*****
"Hello," he said, standing on her doorstep, awkwardly in the youth of his years but somehow freed tonight for the first time, more at ease than ever before - in the presence of a complete stranger.
She smiled uncertainly, her gaze holding his, her left hand holding the door ajar.
The words flooded into his mind, unbidden, replacing the devastating silence that could have been, or the trite plesantries that he had been expecting.
His eyes never left hers.
"...Don't move...
...I'm memorizing your face."
"I'll never forget your face."
She raised an eyebrow, her face registering bemusement.
But her eyes said something very different.
They held each others gazes for a while more, laughing silently without words; touching each other without need for physicality.
He broke the spell, and spun around on his heel.
"Goodbye."
*****
Many years later they stood apart at the base of the stairwell that joins the underground to the Barbican centre.
She, angry and impatient to leave to her play, and her life.
He, sad beyond measure.
Words deserted him this time; there were no magic words to heal the rift which he was creating - intentionally this time.
He sensed she needed that, and this was his one last gift to her.
She frowned at him and he heard her chastising words, remembered her sliding down the wall not so long ago telling her friend that her world was falling down.
"Don't move, K.
I'm memorising your face...
... I'll never forget your face."
Her eyes met his, and they smouldered.
She turned,
and left, forever.
The very same words. A beginning, and an end.
"Beware of Pedestrian".
It always cracks me up a little. Mental images of a huge foot stomping the car as I drive out...
*****
"Hello," he said, standing on her doorstep, awkwardly in the youth of his years but somehow freed tonight for the first time, more at ease than ever before - in the presence of a complete stranger.
She smiled uncertainly, her gaze holding his, her left hand holding the door ajar.
The words flooded into his mind, unbidden, replacing the devastating silence that could have been, or the trite plesantries that he had been expecting.
His eyes never left hers.
"...Don't move...
...I'm memorizing your face."
"I'll never forget your face."
She raised an eyebrow, her face registering bemusement.
But her eyes said something very different.
They held each others gazes for a while more, laughing silently without words; touching each other without need for physicality.
He broke the spell, and spun around on his heel.
"Goodbye."
*****
Many years later they stood apart at the base of the stairwell that joins the underground to the Barbican centre.
She, angry and impatient to leave to her play, and her life.
He, sad beyond measure.
Words deserted him this time; there were no magic words to heal the rift which he was creating - intentionally this time.
He sensed she needed that, and this was his one last gift to her.
She frowned at him and he heard her chastising words, remembered her sliding down the wall not so long ago telling her friend that her world was falling down.
"Don't move, K.
I'm memorising your face...
... I'll never forget your face."
Her eyes met his, and they smouldered.
She turned,
and left, forever.
The very same words. A beginning, and an end.
