Chasing the Possibility

Then what?

These things do not happen in isolation, entire of themselves. There is a before and there is an after… always.

There are those moments from the time you first see each other across some distance: a street, a crowded room, a path through the woods, or whatever it is. That time when you feel that the shape in the distance resolve itself not only into a fellow human being, but there is something there – even at a distance – that makes you turn towards each other.

I – of course – never believed such things, never though such things were possible, not until we saw each other through the crowd of some party. It was as though she came into focus and the rest of the scene: the people, the room, the music, the babble of voices, all faded out until I was staring down some tunnel of distance to where she stood, staring back at me.

It lasted only for an instant, but at the same time it felt longer; as though a whole lifetime passed between us.

Then, when that moment was over she was lost again in the crowd as a couple danced between us.

I picked up my drink and moved off, steering through the crowd like some ship threading through a reef-strewn archipelago. I tried to avoid contact with the people I passed, pretending not to hear when I heard my name called, and not noticing when someone touched my elbow,

Halfway there, though, some woman whose name I couldn’t recall stood in front of me and demanded to be kissed, then whispered in my ear that she would like us to find somewhere quieter and fuck ‘…like last time,’ she whispered, her hand moving down and squeezing. ‘I’m glad some part of you remembers me,’ she said, stroking her hand along it and trying to laugh off the hurt I saw in her eyes.

‘Sorry,’ I whispered back, pressing myself into her hand. ‘But I need to find someone… urgently.’

‘Won’t I do?’ She pouted, her fingers already playing with the tab of my zip.

‘Darling… there you are!’

I couldn’t remember her name or when we’d met, but I did remember her husband. As she turned away towards him, I slipped away and made my way over to where I had seen my mystery woman staring back at me.

She’d gone, of course.