the man in the brown shirt with glasses at the apple store london
saturday night. hanging out in geek land, enjoying the sights and scenery of the beginning of the century. strange that it feels like the end of something.
as usual, not taking anything seriously enough, while taking it all too seriously. hiding truths with lies. i've just taught it to my class - i believe in the land of english, it's known as irony.
what fantastic irony then, to look up, and see...a strange sort of real vision. have i seen him before? he looks desperately familiar, as desperate as i am to remember if he was a dream or belonged to an actual time, not that there is a difference, not really, once they are sorted into what passes for memory.
he is geeky - there, that awful word again. new shoes, brown and white, like sneakers, hiking boots, something else. they are odd. he does not have small feet, and i am pleased, unconsciously, at that.
he is lovely, and organised. when he puts on his glasses to read the screen of the laptop, i fall, hard.
i know i have seen him before.
i laugh and giggle to my sister about him. what else to do, but drag some bit of joy from a perfectly banal moment. strange that the only way to do that appears to be to default to an innocent notion of what to do in the face of beauty. back when moments like these were peppered through the sky and would fall out into one's lap on a regular basis.
but i'm too old for that. too much has happened for me to believe in those moments the way i used to. i can't discard them, laughing, knowing the dance card will refill, swinging hard on my indifference.
brown shirt, brown hair. he stared - was it in my direction, or at me? i stared back, half at him, half at my own sudden fear, a deer in the headlights of hope.
we both turn away.
i cannot even walk past him; this would be admitting desire, and losing myself to the certainty of his non-gaze.
i walk the other way.
turning back, at the head of the stairs, to catch one more look of this ordinary person whose face has stuck in my mind like the unreal photograph that this entire moment contains, i see him look towards where i was sitting, and a brief change of surprise comes over his face.
for a moment, i can believe he is sad that i have left; that he planned to say something, or look in my direction one more time at least.
i am too used to telling myself my dreams do not come true, that dreams remain dreams for that reason.
i look one more time, and turn down the stairs. my son is already nagging me about it being too late to go to forbidden planet.
i smile to myself at the idea of someone mesmerising me, alone on a saturday night, in geek land. i'm here because this is an outing if you have a child, and your sister thought it would be fun.
i'm finished meeting people in pubs. i never liked it much anyway.
i can't stop thinking about him. love at first sight? what's that? especially because i am certain i have seen him before.
i walk, heavily, to the bus stop, it's like a band tugging me back to him, back to the days when i believed in the luck of pure chance.
i think of his face on the bus. it hasn't drifted away, with the thousands of others i have glanced at today, on the tube, on the road, crossing the streets.
i am faced with the realisation that it is me, who thought there was to be no more love. not in my life.
and this morning, after seeing this brown shirted vision in the front row, cozying up to the intimate pleasures afforded to those with an apple laptop and access to regent street (did you really think anyone could come here? think again), saturday night, alone and not alone.
i am not certain which is more tragic; the idea that it was all in my own mind, or the idea that he is thinking of me as well, somewhere, swirling off in the tides of his life, wherever they take him, in this strange and beautiful city, in this bizarre and wonderment.
another weekend. the rented motorcycle waiting outside. pancakes to make. i am not making sense of this.
as usual, not taking anything seriously enough, while taking it all too seriously. hiding truths with lies. i've just taught it to my class - i believe in the land of english, it's known as irony.
what fantastic irony then, to look up, and see...a strange sort of real vision. have i seen him before? he looks desperately familiar, as desperate as i am to remember if he was a dream or belonged to an actual time, not that there is a difference, not really, once they are sorted into what passes for memory.
he is geeky - there, that awful word again. new shoes, brown and white, like sneakers, hiking boots, something else. they are odd. he does not have small feet, and i am pleased, unconsciously, at that.
he is lovely, and organised. when he puts on his glasses to read the screen of the laptop, i fall, hard.
i know i have seen him before.
i laugh and giggle to my sister about him. what else to do, but drag some bit of joy from a perfectly banal moment. strange that the only way to do that appears to be to default to an innocent notion of what to do in the face of beauty. back when moments like these were peppered through the sky and would fall out into one's lap on a regular basis.
but i'm too old for that. too much has happened for me to believe in those moments the way i used to. i can't discard them, laughing, knowing the dance card will refill, swinging hard on my indifference.
brown shirt, brown hair. he stared - was it in my direction, or at me? i stared back, half at him, half at my own sudden fear, a deer in the headlights of hope.
we both turn away.
i cannot even walk past him; this would be admitting desire, and losing myself to the certainty of his non-gaze.
i walk the other way.
turning back, at the head of the stairs, to catch one more look of this ordinary person whose face has stuck in my mind like the unreal photograph that this entire moment contains, i see him look towards where i was sitting, and a brief change of surprise comes over his face.
for a moment, i can believe he is sad that i have left; that he planned to say something, or look in my direction one more time at least.
i am too used to telling myself my dreams do not come true, that dreams remain dreams for that reason.
i look one more time, and turn down the stairs. my son is already nagging me about it being too late to go to forbidden planet.
i smile to myself at the idea of someone mesmerising me, alone on a saturday night, in geek land. i'm here because this is an outing if you have a child, and your sister thought it would be fun.
i'm finished meeting people in pubs. i never liked it much anyway.
i can't stop thinking about him. love at first sight? what's that? especially because i am certain i have seen him before.
i walk, heavily, to the bus stop, it's like a band tugging me back to him, back to the days when i believed in the luck of pure chance.
i think of his face on the bus. it hasn't drifted away, with the thousands of others i have glanced at today, on the tube, on the road, crossing the streets.
i am faced with the realisation that it is me, who thought there was to be no more love. not in my life.
and this morning, after seeing this brown shirted vision in the front row, cozying up to the intimate pleasures afforded to those with an apple laptop and access to regent street (did you really think anyone could come here? think again), saturday night, alone and not alone.
i am not certain which is more tragic; the idea that it was all in my own mind, or the idea that he is thinking of me as well, somewhere, swirling off in the tides of his life, wherever they take him, in this strange and beautiful city, in this bizarre and wonderment.
another weekend. the rented motorcycle waiting outside. pancakes to make. i am not making sense of this.