THE MEETING

Time ... minutes, hours, decades, eras, eternity ... all fleeting....

Their meeting was a fleeting thing against the stupendously large backdrop of time. Think of it: consider the billions of years since they say a big bang created everything or even the millions of years our little planet has revolved around its parent sun in space… or yet the ages since life first flourished on our world, the eras during which life crawled out of the seas and made its home on the land… even the hundreds of centuries since mankind evolved out of a much simpler hominid in what was one day to be called Africa…

Yes, their meeting was a fleeting thing.

But it happened.

He saw her first. He didn’t have much to do, just lean against an old brick wall and stare almost unseeing as the world passed him by. His mind night have been anywhere ... it often journeyed many miles in its effort to find something absorbing in creation something that didn’t cost the Earth, something free … and suddenly she was there.

Paint a picture of an angel and you might have some kind of likeness as she paused walking past him, the hem of her white skirt contrasting with her sun-bronzed thighs and her eyes, those blue intelligent, all-seeing eyes pausing as they swept over him.

And that smile.

There never was such a smile, not in his world, not ever. It consumed something inside his head and made all the myopic staring at nothing into what it really was… not very much at all.

“Hiya,” she said in a quiet, cultured voice.

It was one word, one simple little word, but it led them into Paolo’s Bar and two glasses of cool sangria. And then he replied, “where have you been all my life…?”

Of all the questions that might have been asked by him that was the one he should have silenced before the first word came out. It even sounded corny to him, the blathering rambling of an idiot in front of a spirit from the glorious infinite.

And the infinite might be Heaven if you believe in Heaven.

“I don’t believe in Heaven,” his uncontrollable words told her.

Why did he say that? Did she want or need to know? Would it help if she did know, or would it be the one gigantic obstacle if he really wanted to get to know her. He blushed at his own imbecility and glanced greedily at that white hem of her snow-coloured skirt and the way it made her thighs look even more glorious than they really were, and there was no doubt in his mind that glorious was the right word for them. At least that’s what he thought.

And … oops … that’s what he said.

“I love your thighs,” he confessed.

That might have been the end of everything. She might have sipped her sangria to exhaustion and breezed off, in search of someone better than him.

But she didn’t.

Instead she said “Thank you, kind sir … and yours aren’t so bad either!”

So he said the obvious. “I’m wearing shorts, but it is June so I guess that’s okay?”

Then, to cover his wretchedness, he said “You’ve got really lovely eyes...”

He could tell by the way she used those eyes to smilingly look at him that she knew that. But then he knew that girls were always confident about their better features. They peered in mirrors, isolated them and then enhanced them with mysterious compounds from sets of make-up.

“Yours aren’t so bad,” she replied. “I’ve seen them before.”

Where?

He hadn’t seen her before, he can’t have, he would most certainly have remembered those bronzed thighs and bright blue eyes. And the hair. Tresses of woven gold. He would have remembered them. How could a lad forget such wonderful hair?

“Where?” he asked, a bit belatedly.

“At work,” she said, a tease in her voice.

At work?

Thighs, eyes, hair… had he seen them before? And at work?

He didn’t have work! He hadn’t had a job in a year or more, after he’d been dismissed by Barry Hunt after calling him a name he most certainly didn’t like, accidentally.

He’d called him Barry something else, and it had upset that boss It had involved the dreaded “c” word, and after that he was history.. Well, calling him that would bring problems in its wake, wouldn’t it? But it had just slipped out accidentally, and he’d been ordered off the promises and out into the big wide world with no job and, possibly, no prospects. Ever.

“At work?” he asked.

“At work.” she confirmed. “You said what we all thought.”

“I did?”

“Most certainly. And you were right. The man is one of those, and you were the only one brave enough to tell him!”

Him brave? That put a new perspective on his cowardice, that did!

“Well, what do you want to do now?” she asked.

She wanted to do more? Maybe another drink, though drinks are expensive and he hasn’t got a fortune left over from his week’s dole money.

“I can’t remember you,” he said, sadly.

“You wouldn’t,” she said lightly. “All I did was make tea and coffee and wear an unflattering overall. It was boring and I left soon after you called Mr Hunt by that naughty word!”

“I remember you!” he squawked, remembering the spiky-haired spotty girl. Then: “you’ve changed,” he added.

“I know,” she smiled.

“I like you,” he said. “A lot,” he added.

“Come back to my place,” she almost purred. “There’s something I rally want to do with you, and we can’t do it here, not in public with people watching.”

“Something?” he asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, “I’m coming!”

And he stood up, the fleeting moment was almost gone as he followed her, and very soon after that it was gone. Like all time goes, into a folder called the past which we try to access from time to time, but rarely can. Not properly.

And I stood there with him, looking at his face as a slow dribble of tears oozed from both of his eyes and splashed onto the freshly dug mound in the graveyard.

“It was only thirty-six years ago, son, and now she’s gone,” he sobbed. “The golden thighs and golden hair and bright blue eyes, all gone. For ever. And it was a magical life we shared, magical, wonderful, loving...”

“I know, dad,” I said. “I was there for just about all of it,” I pointed out. “Except for the first nine months,” I added.

© Peter Rogerson 06.12.16

Reviews

[Jessica Jaufmann]

Really sweet ending, but the beginning and middle are cliche and a little boring. Your detail is great, but I still can't see this woman. You have a great inner monologue with our narrator, but I need more detail into where we are exactly. I know it 30 something years ago they met, but from when? Present, past, maybe even the future? Also, their relationship moved very quickly. No woman will just ask some guy to come home and have sex. Sure that happens, but in a total different environment rather than walking down the street and meeting. I'd love to know what she was like before that made him not notice her when he first saw her at "work". I'd suggest you go back through and add in details you want the reader to know. Let me know if you do an update!

[Peter Rogerson]

I'm truly sorry that you want specific details because I intended this to e akin to a sketch or line drawing with huge gaps for the reader to fill in themselves. There won't be an update because tomorrow is another day and made for fresh excursions into the imagination.

[Jessica Jaufmann]

It's interesting that you don't go back to review and edit. I understand if it's just a flash piece, but something really good could come out of this. It's your choice as the author to do what you wish with it, but I suggest not putting pieces like this up for review if you aren't going to consider what the reviews suggests. Because then there really seems no point in reviewing your work and that's what this site is for.

[Peter Rogerson]

You misunderstand me. You can offer thoughts and advice all you like, and welcome I may add, but that doesn't mean I have to change anything. I would if I thought it might help but you require a detailed story and I present you with something else, something to my own liking, and I try to stave off dementia by writing something different every day.

[Jessica Jaufmann]

As long as it works for you as a writer, that's all that matters.

[Peter Rogerson]

Thanks for your comments. I may change my tactics tomorrow or the day after.

[Peter Rogerson]

I have taken your thoughts on board and decided to rework this story, but I intend to leave this original as it was written in all its spartan glory...