Coffee

i look at you, looking at me, and you smile. it's amazing how time flies, but some things never change. your smile. the wisps of steam from the hot coffee swirl around your face. an aura of mystery envelopes it. again, another enigmatic smile, as you catch me staring deeply into your eyes. you look away, and say something banal. "how have you been?" i shrug my shoulders, my body language says it all. "what can happen to me? i'm awesome, as always" so much water has passed under the bridge. we stand on a different bridge now. even the river passing below is unknown to us. the conversation is sparse, cliched - it's at the point of being strained, but it's not. we've been through too much for that to happen. we can never be uncomfortable talking.

the sun breaks through some cottony cloud. the warm rays cast a benign glow on us. you know that as long as the sun shines everything's going to be alright. we listen to the humdrum of life going on around us, people rush past, people saunter past. its all about the past. you're only as good as your past allows you to be. the past means nothing if you don't learn from it. my past means nothing, for i have learned nothing. it's been a bittersweet discovery that i am what i am, and that's that - nothing changes.

again you catch me staring at you, holding the coffee mug with both hands, drawing strength from it. a sip, appreciating the goodness of the rich coffee beans, from the kenyan highlands. your eyes. i see myself in your eyes. i see my whole life flashing by in your eyes. you reach out your hand and touch mine. suddenly it seems all my life is focussed at the point your fingers rest on. nothing else exists, but that touch. every nerve in my body tingle as one, with a life of their own, and with regret. i sigh, and that breaks the spell. your eyes instantly alert, asking questions of me. i smile weakly, willing myself to say something, anything. i fail. i breathe deeply, inhaling the scent. the flowers in bloom, the aroma of the steaming coffee, and you. i hold both your hands. they are soft, feminine, exquisite. slim tapering fingers, with neat short nails, clear gloss on them. your left hand is slowly raised to return one of your stray, untamed ringlets behind your ear. the little gold stud there shines as it catches the light glinting off the railing on the sidewalk. like so many other moments before, this moment is gone too.

i stand, and come around to pull your chair. as you rise, you half turn, and i get a whiff of your floral scented shampoo. you smile to say thanks, and your pearly-whites flash. your arm brushes my shirt front, then you straighten my collar. time again stands still as you let your hands rest on my collar. i suddenly feel myself gripping the back of the chair. i tilt my head and feel the back of your hand against the day-old stubble on my cheek. that same feather touch. you step closer, i lean into you. those black-brown eyes are boring into mine, with a white-hot intensity. closer. and closer. i feel your breath, like a little cool gust on a hot, languid afternoon. i realise i'm still holding onto the chair. i also realise i've stopped breathing. in fact i also realise i don't want to breathe either. your up-turned nose touches mine, as your lips brush past. another brush. my dry lips feel like they've been baking in the sun. you're looking at me. i lose myself in your eyes.

it's a beautiful day to be out. it's gusty, but the sun is shining. i extract my arm from yours, to crack my knuckles, trying to restore circulation in my fingers still numb from gripping the chair. it seems the whole world is out today to celebrate the sun. we walk, almost aimlessly, my arm around you, your head on my shoulder. you look happy, secure. you laugh at one of my inane statements about life in general. its an honest laugh. from the inside. and we walk on, me rambling on, you listening and nodding, like we always used to do.

Journey

Her lower lip is always a little pushed out in this sort of permanent pout, giving her a bit of an air of haughtiness. This is then enhanced by her nose, pretty enough as it is, with the tip a little up-turned. Her hair is a mass of curls spilling over like a mountain brook filling and overflowing a rock pool. Eyes always tell a story. Hers do more. They read like a novel sometimes, and other times they are dark pools that quietly swallow all the light like a pair of black holes in the depths of space.

Her hands cannot stay still. She buries her little fingers in her black ringlets, uncurling the locks one by one, then curling them again, round and round and round... And her lips remain slightly parted, creating an air of sensuality. She shows a few of her teeth, as the corners of her shapely mouth slowly stretch outward to give me a million-dollar smile. Teeth, a perfect row of teeth, like pearls laid out on pink velvet in a shop window. Occasionally her luscious tongue flashes out and licks her living lips. The tongue caresses them like the flow of molten lava. Hot and damp, and dangerously seductive.

Her eyebrows are high and arched, framing the almond-shaped eyes, the ones i cannot ever be mad at. Maybe mad for, but never mad at. They flit from side to side, looking into my eyes one second and into my heart the next, with a kind of languid sloth, belying the sharp mind whirring away incessantly behind their dark, chocolatey innocence.

She clears her throat, and a little voice tinkles out "What are you doing?". Words stick in my mouth at the husky undertone to the stream trickling it's way up from inside her, over her tongue and between her teeth and out in a slow-sweet gush over her lips. A hand slowly comes up, attached to a perfectly-sculpted alabaster arm, feeling for my hand, which feels like a dead lead weight. Her touch brings out a rash of goose pimples on the hitherto dead weight, which comes to life like the touch that resurrected it.

Her face tapers down to an exquisitely shaped chin, ending in a little dimple right at the end. Over the rise, and her neckline curves it's way sweetly downward into the unknown. The kind of unknown that is a pleasure to discover. Well-proportioned is a misnomer, as it hardly begins to describe the twists and turns on the road to heaven, y'know. The waist, oh the waist, it can blow your mind and leave you weak at the knees. Legs, oh my, legs. Not a Ruben, more Michelangelo.

She tosses her head to clear her wayward hair from her face. Again she touches me. Her skin is soft, like freshly kneaded pizza-dough. As for her complexion, peaches and cream is the term used, isn't it? Her fingers slowly run like a five-legged caterpillar up inside my jersey sleeve. They stroke my arm with a feather touch. An errant fingernail leaves a mark on my dry skin. She flashes me a smile. Like ice-cold water on parched earth, her smile seeps into my soul.

She closes her eyes. A sense of calm prevails in the aura around her. This is the kind of girl you always wished you'd meet, and she's the kind of girl who'd have slipped by you if you didn't have your eyes wide open looking for her. She casts another inquisitive glance in my direction. I am a lucky man. Not just lucky. Blessed. To have someone like this girl love me. She puts her book away, and hands me her glasses. She wants to nap. She unwinds slowly like an uncoiling boa, and stretches with a stifled yawn. For a split second i am treated to an unresricted view of a lithe and lissome body, my eyes goggle and my head goes into a little spin. She places her head upon my lap and all the ideas that were awash in my mind drain away.

She turns in her sleep. A small moan escapes her lips, more like a gasp. Her tongue flits out again. She is sleeping the sleep of the innocent. I like it that way; i promised her that all her worries would be mine too.

Her eyes slowly open, as she wakes and looks at me. And it is a look filled with countless dreams. It jumps onto me. Pulls my heartstrings. Places its yearning lips upon mine. Stretches its long hands and holds onto my arm. Yes, the look is a story in itself. It speaks of places to go, things to do, words to say, sounds to hear, aromas to smell, textures to feel. In her eyes i see a home calling out to us, our yet unborn children playing hide-n-seek, long walks on trails lit up by the spring sun and cold nights with steamed-up windows, unbounded joy and happiness rebounding off the walls of my mind.

Her eyelids start to droop again, in the lazy spirals of an eagle winging its way around its domain. Again, another look. A look of longing. A thirst unquenched for a million years. Wanting to be fulfilled, but still unsatiated. A want. A basic need. Desperate. Like seeing water being snatched away from you reach when all your life you walked through a desert to get to the life-giving water.

She moves over to come and sit next to me, her body fitting right next to mine like two pieces in a jig-saw puzzle. Embers glow within. They rekindle then as she says "I love you". An awakening. A gradual rising in the pit of my existence. A fire. Stoked and fed. Pushed and pulled. Rise and grow. Heat up and cool down. A tongue of flame mets with a sliver of ice and there is a great sizzle.

Swimming across the abyss having probed into the lower depths, and the sea is raging, and furious, and waves crash all over the place, making lights dance crazily, and the classical concerto turns into the heavy booming roar of a rock concert. The roar turns into an explosion. Bliss. Joy. And then a transluscent, glowing sheen covers the whole picture.

Life is a series of journeys. A journey is a series of adventures. An adventure is a series of incidents. An incident is a series of happenings. A happening is a combination of events, a co-incidental collusion betwen Fate and Time.

She and I. We are a coincidence. A twist of Fate, a thread in the coat-lining of Time, and a hefty dose of the Unknown. This Unknown is a fascinating thing. We cut it up but it grows. We throw it out and find it inside us again. We run hard but it stays right by our side. It is the glue that holds us and the rope that binds us. Unknown does not grow old, it just grows in size. He comes when you least expect him. She mends tears and heals wounds. Unknown is He, and Unknown is She. Unknown is alive.

She is still looking at me. Her lips still slightly parted. Her tongue's still flitting in and out like a pink honeybee among the white ivory tulips. Still smiling. Million-dollar smile. Million-watt smile. The darkness of loneliness is lit up. The dark clouds of a life without you are exploded, shattered and dispelled into millions and millions of little dots while you're there.

A shrill, long-drawn screech as the train brakes and pulls into the station. The flood of people slowly drain out like water in the bath down the plughole. The train is empty. We are still sitting up there, just the two of us, looking at each other.

I love you.