To see your face again

It had been a stressful day at the office today. The kind of day that made you loosen your tie. I decided to take a walk through the Park before I drove home. Helped me to calm down. The closest that you can get to pure air in the polluted confines of the City.

As I was walking through the stone pathway canopied by the trees, I caught a glimpse of a face which was vaguely recognizable. Could it be? Was it possible? Her? A blast from the past so to speak. It was her. By now, I was no longer walking but just staring. She too had now seen me. Either she was dumbstruck that a total stranger was gawking at her or she too had finally realized that it was me. After what seemed like an eternity, she smiled. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I walked up to her jauntily with a smile that eclipsed that of the Cheshire cat. She was still having the same pleasant expression on her face. The same expression, the same face. She had hardly changed. It had been quite a long time since I had last seen her. It was a funny relationship we had had. We had hardly met though we had talked a lot. Almost daily. I think I had been in love with her. No, I am sure, I definitely had been. And I think the feeling was mutual. Yet never once had either of us show even the slightest inclination of expressing any of these sentiments to each other. This, assuming, she too was in love with me. I think she was. Well, most probably.

The silence was broken ever so softly by her mellifluous voice as she enquired how I was. I replied I was doing good and exchanged niceties similarly. Then the silence reappeared in all its evil uncomfortable glory, as we stood there looking at each other, horrible smiles adorning our uneasy faces knowing not what to say or do.

My mind started to wander. It usually does when I have nothing to say. Awkward as it was, my first thought drifted to the brown eyes, the black lithe tresses and the svelte figure of my wife. I suddenly remembered the last conversation I had had with my wife. I hadn’t known how to react.

It was the morning of the same day and I had been reading the papers. The comic strip. Calvin and Hobbes. Drinking a cup of hot steaming tea. She approached me looking rather apprehensive and sat down on the cushioned sofa next to me. She said she had something to tell me. I remained silent still reading the papers. She continued undaunted that about a month ago she had run into one of her old college-mates. She had mentioned this guy before. A freelance photographer. I put the paper down and looked at her, still not speaking. He had come up to her and told her in all his brusque naivete that he loved her. He always had. He could not bear to see her with another man.

By now, my mind was overrun with a plethora of emotions and feelings. Why was she telling me this? Is she going to leave me? Perhaps she has been having this affair for a long time now. Did she actually love this other guy? Did she love me? Had she ever loved me? What did she want me to do? To say? Did she want money? What was going on??

However, on the outside I still maintained the stoic visage of apathy personified. But I did ask her what happened then. She looked up and told me with a cherubic countenance that she had told him off. She had told him she was far too happily married and far too much in love to even consider his request. I was positively beaming by now and asked her why she had told me this in the first place. She replied insouciantly that she had just felt like it. I felt funny. Discomforted. I should have been happy yet I still was unsure.

I returned to the umbrageous footpath from the vivid flashback. Even the birds and the insects had decided to quiesce to let us feel that much more nervous and uneasy. She was still there looking uncertain of what was going on in my head. She seemed disquieted. I was thinking of some appropriate question to ask her. Or perhaps something about some mutual friend. Then, she did something I hardly expected. She wrinkled her forehead and looked serious as she stated rather tersely that she loved me.

Almost instantly, I replied that I loved her too.