I was just grabbing a Coke at the lunch place near my office when I looked up and saw her smiling at me. I catalogued her features in an instant; short, dark, curly hair, olive skin, warm brown eyes, teeth slightly crooked. I couldn't tell how old she was; she could have been thirty, she could have been sixteen. I must have looked as startled as I felt, because she laughed instantanteously. Just a little laugh, like an invitation to laugh back. I, in turn, became a stammering wreck and left the premises as quickly as possible. That was a week ago and ever since, I have stalked that cafe like a still-hunter, every lunch hour, every coffee break. I have had afterwork drinks at every nearby bar, my eyes constantly alert and on the lookout, my belly fluttering with a terrible mixture of hope and fear.
There is nothing worse than having fallen in love. I'm not talking about adult love, the kind that grows used to one another, compiles grocery lists, and revels in the familiar warmth on one side of the bed night after night. That type of love is a human construct; built from the materials of logic and need for the sake of stability, comfort and understanding. I'm not denying the power of adult love, but it is, as I have already noted, a human construct, and quite unlike the sensation I am describing. I am describing a phenomena that must be either natural or divine. You have no more say in controlling the feeling that I'm describing than you would have of dodging a lightning strike. For that is the closest comparison, a lightning strike. From out of the blue it bolts and leaves you charred, stunned and stupid. You walk into trees. You take the elevator to your office down instead of up, and when recognizing your folly and riding back up, you miss your floor completely and walk out into a strange new hallway with all the wrong pictures on the wall.
When I saw her, through the glass of the drink cooler, all the hormones in my body shattered and rained down through my psyche in colorful flashes like a giant pane of stained glass. There was a flood of sunlight and my eyes did not have time to adjust to it. I won't see her again. After a week-long stakeout of the coffee shop, I am convinced. It is for the best; I think we can safely assume that. For the sake of stability and comfort and understanding, I think this is best.
