Is this Love? Or is this Magic?

We lay under an endless ceiling of suspended confetti that twinkled sharply against the vast darkness. The pregnant moon hung like the single bulb of a grand chandelier. When I relaxed my eyes the stars blurred and I felt lifted, floating weightless in the moment. A squeeze from his arms drew me back down into the earth that cradled us. The bass of his deep voice and the steady beat at which he spoke lulled me towards sleepy fantasies. I no longer heard his words yet, I listened to everything he said.

When it was my turn to speak, I swam back towards consciousness to respond to all of his curiosities, whims and peculiarities because I shared them and understood them when no one else did. This delighted him and he expressed it with enthusiastic kisses on which ever body parts of mine lay closest to him. I nuzzled my face further into the crook of his shoulder, with one hand resting on his ribs, as if to say, “Yes, yes, I understand it all!”

With my ear to his chest now, I listened to the vibrato within as he carried on, speaking for both of us on our common desires and dreams. It soothed my muscles and before I closed my eyes to let my mind drift into the wind, I reflected back on how I had known this man for exactly 12 hours since this morning’s sunrise. I took one deep breath in, then exhaled, safe and relaxed, and wondered – is this love? Or is this magic?

How To Drink Scotch

We clinked our glasses in mutual agreement after sharing a belly aching laugh over something only the two of us could find humor in, without having to verbalize the absurdity. He placed his drink down at the bar and excused himself to the men’s room. I watched him walk away with his easy gait and that carefree air about him, as though he were a perpetual wanderer in pursuit of nothing other than discoveries of the moment.

I felt a touch on my shoulder and turned to see the face of an attractive older woman whose age could only have been revealed by looking directly into her eyes. With slight laugh lines that curtained her wide smile, she looked at me and said in a friendly tone, “I’m sorry to bother you but, are you two together?”

“Him?” I responded, nodding towards the direction he left in. I was slightly amused. “No,” I answered. “We’re not together.”

“Well, darling,” the woman started, with a twinkle in her eye, “I find that I’m much wiser now than I used to be. And I couldn’t help but notice your chemistry from across the bar. I was envious of the way you were together, so natural and comfortable. You ought to make that man yours.”

I laughed genuinely and heartily at her sincere words to me. “That man right there,” I said pointing towards the figure making his way back towards us, “is my ex-husband.”

The woman’s face froze for a nano-second before a look of surprise and puzzlement took over. “Really? Wow… But you could have fooled anyone! Why on earth did you two separate?”

“It would take a lifetime to tell our story,” I said and smiling sweetly I added, “I have no doubt you are more experienced and wiser but, I do believe that life and love remain a mystery to us all. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well, sweetie, cheers to that… And best of luck to you both.” We toasted and she took a sip of her red wine before flashing another grin, glancing at him next to me.

I wished her a goodnight and turned back to my companion for the evening. My friend now, and part of my story. He winked at me as he took a gulp of his scotch.

F’d Up and Beautiful

I squinted into the sunlight and the white hot glare illuminated a smidgeon of filth in the upper left corner of my left lens. Without thinking, I removed my glasses before crossing the street to polish them when the sound of a truck horn startled me and I dropped them into the street. Bad move. In a panic, and bordering legal blindness, I reached out with both hands in front and took a step forward. The devastating crunch beneath my feet sealed my fate for the day. Stepping backwards in a blur that frenzied me in my world without sight, I bent down to pick up the remnants of the sleek titanium frames and minimal glass that gave the gift of vision. Before placing the salvaged seeing tool back on the bridge of my nose, I caught a beautiful image with its beauty ironically enhanced ever more by my lack of sight: a torrent of red silk fleeing across in front of me, fabric flapping in the wind and what sounded like delicate stiletto heels slamming into pavement. I barely made out the image of a female, distinguishable only by her frail, outlined curves, crowned by a massive wave of billowing blond hair. Unusual and out of place, her presence was not only confusing but highly intriguing as her escape was captioned by a muffled, helpless sob pre-empting some sense of danger and distress in hot pursuit of her red silk and stilettos.

The suspense was thrilling in my blindness and as I whipped my head around to follow the blond hair trailing her body I was gripped with excitement – without sight, my imagination heightened and I strained my eyes to construct what I could not, in reality, actually see: a grisly day time crime scene unfolding; a dystopian fairytale; a story book character who tore herself out of a commuter’s contemporary novel to chase down her love who may have been written to death to soon. Awed completely by the out-of-ordinary and my unseeing eyes, I looked around and wondered in amazement if no one else had been caught in this dizzying denouement of some stranger’s story. Fiction or non-fiction, we’ll never know.

I realized at once, breathing heavily and gaping after the path blazed by my alleged heroine/refugee, I was still on the same street corner holding my ruined glasses, in my painstakingly ordinary pencil skirt and button down, with nowhere to flee but my 15th floor office, no more a damsel in distress than the next corporate climbing, status seeking urbanite. As I made out twinkling green traffic lights ahead, I put my glasses back on and as though the science of optometry hadn’t delivered me beyond and back today, I watched the world pass by through cracked lenses, my new kaleidoscope face-gear, and silently marveled at it all. So fucked up and beautiful as it was, on a scorching, humid day in the city.

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