Oct 18, 2009 23:03
Once upon a time there lived a boy and a girl. the boy was 18 and the girl 16. he was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. and the miracle actually happened.
One day the two came upon each other on the street.
"This is amazing," he said, "I've been looking for you all my life. you may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."
"and you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as id pictured you in every detail. its like a dream."
They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. they were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found my your 100% perfect other. Its a miracle, a cosmic miracle.
As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?
And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Lets test ourselves- just once. If we really are each others 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. and when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"
"Yes, that is exactly what we should do," she said.
and so they parted, she to the east and he to the west.
The test they had agreed upon, however was utterly unnecessary. They should never had undertaken it, because they really and truly were each others 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. but it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were.
The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.
One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season's terrible flu, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their early years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D.H. Lawrence's piggy bank.
They were two bright, determined young people however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.
Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was 32, the girl 30.
One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, both along the same narrow street in the harajuku neighborhood of tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in the chest. and they knew:
she is the 100% perfect girl for me.
he is the 100% perfect boy for me.
but the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of 14 yrs. earlier.
Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.
A sad story, don't you think?
Yes, that's it. That is what I should have said to her.