The moment I saw her I knew I was in love. So beautiful, so pristine, so classy, this was the woman I never knew I had been looking for--how could I know that something so perfect existed? Suddenly I felt strangely self-conscious, I tried to look cool, strut, lean jauntily against a wall. It seemed strange, ridiculous that I wasn't wearing a suit, a tie, a fedora, carrying a pocket watch on a chain. It seemed strange that everyone wasn't; why weren’t the masses milling by dressed in their absolute sharpest, dressed to kill? Anything less was an insult to the immeasurable beauty of this goddess that I had just discovered.
On Friday I purchased from her two train tickets. Saturday I returned, having rethought my choice to travel at 4 am Sunday, to return them. For her I waited an hour only to discover the computers were down, I must return on the morrow after all. For her I rose at three Sunday morning, I came to her but she had cancelled my train. Back I came that afternoon but the ticket office was not open. Monday morning came, and early so did I to pay homage to her once more, I waited forty minutes before I was forced to give up my place in line, other obligations dragging me away. That afternoon I returned once more, this time determined to have my love. But she would not yield so easily, I had not brought my passport--no she hadn’t told me I’d need it but of course I should’ve known, for her I would’ve, should’ve brought anything, everything. Straightaway I ran home and back to retrieve the desired document.
Finally, after leading me around on a leash and insulting me when I was vulnerable, finally she gave me what I needed and I knew then that she loved me too and from then until the end of time everything would be alright. I pressed my face to the glass, a cool gentle breeze slowly drifting through the round speaking hole. My love, personified in the woman behind the desk: her girlish figure, her boyish hair, her deep dark eyes, her clear fair skin, her ridiculous uniform which she carried with such grace. Carelessly, thoughtlessly she recited aloud as she typed. There was no passion, no regard to the syllables, yet even in her indifference her voice was olive oil dripping over bread, running over, leaving your fingers glazed, slick.
“ScoLAH-ro; Ben-jaMEEN; REE-in.” My name--my name had just passed through those delicate Italian lips! I was already in a state of Nirvana before she moved on to my passport number--poetry.
“cinque, tre, diciannove…”
By the time my information was entered into the computer knew I had found all I could ever dream of--I knew I must ask for her hand in marriage, even through the invisible, impenetrable glass sheet cutting between us, this was too urgent to put off! But, like a bashful schoolboy, my decisive move was thwarted by the paralyzing fear which suddenly and totally consumed me; all I could muster as I collected my refund, before I backed slowly away, was a “grazie mille” from the furthest depths of my heart. She did not return my gaze. She had already left.
What can I say? I’m in love.
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