Could these eyes really be eking out sincerity as she felt they did? No, she mustn't doubt it. She was seeing it. As plainly as she was seeing the din yonder. As plainly as the sun who was now completely gone, wiping all traces of his being there a little while ago, with him. She saw how surprisingly vulnerable he was willing to feel, in her presence. This was not something customary to him in front of the others. She never saw him at a loss for words, in rebuke to anyone who did the preliminary honour of hurling them at him. Or at anyone who gave a friendly nudge. Never, was he ever someone who showed, he could be dealt with easily. Never had his face ever betrayed, any pain or emotion he may have felt. But that was with everybody else. This was her. It is perhaps an honour, this sort of emotional nakedness. But why was she still wondering. She was still thinking rationally. She was doing her customary analysis, dissection of facts and trying furtively to reach a conclusion. But conclusions of this sort are seldom attained through a rational analysis. You shouldn't always think, if you need to get ahead in the emotional realm, she once heard someone say to her. The non-logic didn't appeal to her then, it couldn't appeal to her now. She stood still, expressing all these doubts in her mind through the solemn stillness of her face. He could perhaps read her mind. Perhaps. But he couldn't! Nobody ever did or could so far. Not accurately at least. And so they stood, facing each other; he watching her expectantly and she, looking at and beyond him at the same time, contemplating how to decipher the stirring of irrational ideas within her.
And then it struck her, like a bolt of lightning across the dark night sky studded with heavy, soggy clouds. It cut through the fog of the somber stillness brought about by the heaviness in the atmosphere. The sky that stood staring them now was of course calm. Then it finally hit her. In all this time that she knew him, as a friend, as one of the others, it hit her. She realised what it was that was nagging her. He was one of the compartmentalisers! He was a part of that tribe of them, who thought, that mind and feeling needn't be confused amongst. They were separate entities that needed no mixing. They were independent of the existence of each other. They needed not, the other, to survive. They both drew fuel from two separate reservoirs. They never needed to have anything to do with each other. That was what ALL of them felt! They all thought the same (she couldn't say 'felt' anymore, now, could she). "When you find a chick attractive, not you of course, you're one too, well, When you find a chick attractive, she's attractive. Dot. What's to think anymore?", said one of her friends once. But there lay her fundamental problem. She never felt someone was attractive that way. She never thought, oh that amazing height! Oh the stature! At least, not by themselves alone.
She never felt someone was purely attractive because he purely was. She needed an element of tenacity to think, the endangered commodity these days. She could not stand, that someone could just feel attracted to the person of someone based on the show they put up, of their body. That was what it was, a show. None knew what dressing like a gentleman was, anymore, or for that matter, a lady. They all seemed to wear shards and rags, they called clothes, and passed them off as if they were sacred. Disgusting! None bothered to put any element of elegance in their dressing. None had a sense of it anymore, anyway.
He's one of THEM, who doesn't know how to distinguish between that base popular sentiment based on shoddy imagery and that, which emanated from a true sense of deep understanding, respect, desire and oneness with the other. He does not know me! He thinks he does, he doesn't.
How easily she'd written him off!..
And then it struck her, like a bolt of lightning across the dark night sky studded with heavy, soggy clouds. It cut through the fog of the somber stillness brought about by the heaviness in the atmosphere. The sky that stood staring them now was of course calm. Then it finally hit her. In all this time that she knew him, as a friend, as one of the others, it hit her. She realised what it was that was nagging her. He was one of the compartmentalisers! He was a part of that tribe of them, who thought, that mind and feeling needn't be confused amongst. They were separate entities that needed no mixing. They were independent of the existence of each other. They needed not, the other, to survive. They both drew fuel from two separate reservoirs. They never needed to have anything to do with each other. That was what ALL of them felt! They all thought the same (she couldn't say 'felt' anymore, now, could she). "When you find a chick attractive, not you of course, you're one too, well, When you find a chick attractive, she's attractive. Dot. What's to think anymore?", said one of her friends once. But there lay her fundamental problem. She never felt someone was attractive that way. She never thought, oh that amazing height! Oh the stature! At least, not by themselves alone.
She never felt someone was purely attractive because he purely was. She needed an element of tenacity to think, the endangered commodity these days. She could not stand, that someone could just feel attracted to the person of someone based on the show they put up, of their body. That was what it was, a show. None knew what dressing like a gentleman was, anymore, or for that matter, a lady. They all seemed to wear shards and rags, they called clothes, and passed them off as if they were sacred. Disgusting! None bothered to put any element of elegance in their dressing. None had a sense of it anymore, anyway.
He's one of THEM, who doesn't know how to distinguish between that base popular sentiment based on shoddy imagery and that, which emanated from a true sense of deep understanding, respect, desire and oneness with the other. He does not know me! He thinks he does, he doesn't.
How easily she'd written him off!..
