By Nadia (ms.nadia@mail.com)
Date: 20 December 2000

Wonderful Stranger

Well, here I am, sitting here waiting for you.  Whoever you are.  For two years now I've seen you around, in the restaurants near campus, on the benches that border the creek, in this café just last weekend.

I was here to visit with my friend Poppy, whom I haven't seen in some time and, as we spoke, you sat down behind her.  You were alone, as usual, loaded down with books, as usual.  Your positioning was such that, when I looked at Poppy, you were peering at me over her shoulder, apparently ignoring your books.  How unfair to her, I thought, that I should spend this precious time with her looking at you instead.  I'm not even sure I was listening to what she was saying because my stolen glances over her shoulder were inevitably met by yours, and our eyes were dancing an intricate, illicit tango.  My mind drifted away from the café to a delicious daydream where our bodies followed their lead.

I wonder so much about you, but somehow realize that the not knowing is a precious sensation, to be savoured while it lasts.  As long as I don't know otherwise, you're single, straight and available.  You're about 35, a professor of something fantastic and absorbing, like astrophysics.  And you are, of course, foreign.  Maybe Russian or Italian.  When you open your mouth to speak, the words that spill out will be beautifully rounded and deliberately chosen to tell me about the exotic life you led before coming to America.  In my mind, you are gentle but strong, determined yet generous.  You are taken with me, but also reach out and take me to you.  Your wit will make me laugh, your tenderness will make me cry.  

I am so focused on your image in mind's eye that I hardly notice as you take a seat at the table next to me now.  When all of a sudden I do see you there, I am no longer in control.  Like two perfectly symmetrical objects in physics, your physical proximity to your reflection in my mind threatens your mutual annihilation.  It's something I can't risk.  Not yet.  My heart races, my hands tremble as you glance over at me repeatedly.  I sense you are about to speak and before you can, I jump up, gather my things and go.  I'm just not yet willing to let you break the magical spell of silence, to throw off that silken blanket of not knowing.

But I'll be back soon, and maybe by then I'll be ready.  Will you be here?
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