I didn't expect the girl of my dreams to suddenly walk through the door, although I had actually expected it to happen. Some people spend their entire lives, search the entire world hoping to find the man or woman they've waited for since they were born. Maybe these people are running to meet their destiny, or unintentionally running away from it. Who can know for sure? But I knew that for me such a search would be ridiculous. The girl of my dreams would just as well walk into this certain bar at this late hour at some point in her life. I merely had to wait there each night at that same hour. And so, here I had been for years every night at ten o'clock.
The waiting would have to pay off sometime. Now it actually had paid off and I was completely stunned, had never thought about what I would do in the actual situation. There she was. Besides not leaving she began to look indescribable, though everything about her was just as I had imagined it would be. Her hair fell magically across her face as a blind painter could only have captured imperfectly in a masterpiece. Eyes, nose, mouth: all were there, perfectly constellated, as a coincidental constellation of stars fits together.
What would I say to her? What could I say to her? And what if I did say something? True, it was her I'd always waited for. But how would it be if I no longer had the thrill of waiting? And what, really, should I say, "Uh, you come here often, don't you?" or "Hi, do you have a sign?" or... But then she started walking towards me! Oh God, now I had to say something. Yes! and I knew exactly, yes!, the most beautiful words to say to this most beautiful of all women.
I opened my mouth, heard myself asking her, "Do you know what time it is?"
"Five past nine," she answered back, and I sat there speechless.
"But it can't be nine o'clock! I...I've never been here before ten. I mean, I always come here at ten because... I..."
She laughed, "Relax! The clocks were turned back yesterday. Didn't you know that?"
No, I hadn't known that, but felt then suddenly at ease and a little embarrassed because I had made such a fool of myself and because it had now become completely unimportant, saying the right words to her.
"Did anything like that ever happen to you?" I asked her, noticing that it brought a pleasant tingle of excitement, trading the few trivial sentences with her.
"Yes," she replied and smiled, "what's your name?"
Story #279
26 comments:
Another great story, Indie!
Thanks Peppermints!
then the guy replied, "my name is 'yours'". and this was no joke.
Dawn of the muse. I bet she'd been coming in every day for happy hour and leaving at 9:45.
Nizoral: I wonder if this was a happy end now.
Doug: "Dawn of the muse" It's uncanny that you should say that. I'll tell you why later.
Such vile inuendo! FILTH.
Soapy: I don't mind your finding my stories filth. I expect it, but usually I can understand why. By no stretch of the imagination can I find anything filthy about a man and woman meeting each other for the first time and hitting it off. Did you just not like that it happened in a bar?
The bar setting is vile. Also, "brought a pleasant tingle of excitement"?! I know filth when I see it!
Aha, it was the tingle! I didn't think of the tingle. But it wasn't meant to be that kind of a tingle, though. More like butterflies in his stomache. Guess I just can't win with Soapy. But for you I'll make a special version:
For "bar" substitute "church social" and for "pleasant tingle of excitement" substitute "feeling of rapture".
Why am I so afraid you'd stop coming by if I cleaned up all my stories?
That was a great story that I can relate to happening to me in the past.
I love stories written in the first person. At first I thought you were writing a true experience. I enjoyed the story a lot.
It's a story that could happen in France I would like it better in the south,some part of the story is true,most of it is true.
When I met mine I said something stupid so that must be true too.
Anyway,girls are beautiful and the sweetest girl is the one made for you.
OK,I don't mind if I'm wrong:
"It's a true story and it's yours"
Welcome back! And nice story.
Everyone: I had a little fun with you with this story. I did feel guilty about leaving you so long with nothing to read. I felt like I was breaking a promise. Then I had the idea to use an older story of mine. This is the first story I ever wrote. It was written ten years ago, originally in German. Back when I was studying for my masters I decided to take a class to improve my German. But my German was too good to benefit from the usual classes for foreigners. I then thought of entering a writing class. It was called "Avoiding Cliches" held by an established author Jochen Schimmang. I learned a bit about writing, not much about German, though. No one wanted to correct me. They all thought it a shame to mess with my "creative" misuse of German. Anyhow, in the first session we were given the assignment to write a description of meeting our dreamgirl or dreamboy. And we had half an hour. Terrifying, but lots of the stories were quite good. Doug couldn't have known how right he was with "birth of the muse." I still can't believe I wrote this in half an hour, when so many of the other stories have taken so long. I'm glad you all enjoyed this, except Soapy, but I'm glad she was honest about her impressions.
Should it remind me of something?
If yes, then you cheated twice, because its not competed :)).
I guess it goes to show you that dreams can be a little scary up close.
Elveshat: I take the ending as more of beginning. Perhaps there should be a sequel.
Ariel: If it makes you feel better, this was not the original ending to the story. My original ending was such a cliche, the instructor told me, that I owed them a new ending next week. My original ending was meaner (as all my endings usually are). At the end of the story he wakes up and find out it was all a dream. I think that's not a bad ending, especially when you're writing about meeting a dream girl/boy. My muse says that ending was better, too. The statement I was trying to make is that there are no dream partners, except in dreams.
Still Life: You knew it was a dream!
Ariel, the women we write about become beautiful in the telling. There are no ugly subjects. This is how we kiss toads.
It's the weekend, right? Here's my story:
I was sitting at the bar with two new friends, talking about the trouble with women when in walked a woman whose face was all the trouble I needed. Truth to tell, she was a ugly as a mud fence. She walked in slouching, an orange sweater that would have been big on me left about four inches of hairy wrist bare above knuckles that would be dragging on the ground if she slouched just a little bit further.
She took the stool next to me. To be honest, I lost the stool and would have had it burned anyway. She croaked out an order of beer for herself and for us. She seemed to be sitting straighter just then.
"What are your names?" she asked. "Come here often?" I expected her to say more but she sat quietly and looked at us waiting for us to answer. I noticed that behind the ugliness her eyes were a beautiful dark brown.
I gave my name and she asked me what I did for a living, When I asnwered she was curious and asked me questions about my work like she had thought about it before. I ordered us each another beer. She gave her name and told me about her work. She was a secretary. I was disappointed at first, but she talked about the work that happened around her and how she made it move. I noticed the hair on her arms was flecked with gold that shone in the barlight. There was something about the sweater sleeve stopping right there. The proportion of it. The bare wrist and the tendons made me wonder about the rest of her.
She told me she loved to read and about her favorite authors. I'd never heard of most them. She told me about the places she'd traveled from her apartment with her Atlas and imagination. We ordered another round and talked about politics, poverty, poetry. I couldn't understand why I'd thought she was ugly. She was beautiful.
She and I went home together. The next morning the beer-light had fled from my eyes and I saw clearly again. I looked at the chair where she'd thrown her clothes there was no orange sweater, but a small white dress. The woman next to me was blonde and beautiful and smooth. I touched her hair softly and she opened one beautiful dark eye. Looking up at me she captured my soul then said "I gotta quit drinking."
Hey Doug, I forgot to explicitely call off the weekend story thing, and I'm glad I did.ö What you wrote, that was pure brilliance. I'm going to repost it at indeterminacies. If anyone else still wants to contribute a story about meeting your dream partner, please go for it. But you probably won't top Doug ;-)
Hahaha, Ariel! I guess that should have been hair on her mole, huh? Thanks, Indie.
You get a lot of comments eh?
It seems to me that in this story Indie is writing about an ugly girl, that's why we have the benefit of the picture: to show that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder!
That story had a comfortable way about it. I know the guy was feeling uncomfortable and awkward about what to do and say, but the way they eased into conversation and instant friendship.... I liked it very much.
Jamie: I usually like spontaneous prose best, but I had a hard time thinking up a new ending after being admonished for writing a cliche. I got to liking the second ending better than the first, too. ;-)
I really love this line...
" Eyes, nose, mouth: all were there, perfectly constellated, as a coincidental constellation of stars fits together."
Oh Indie!
Thanks Cori. The author running the class singled out that sentence too. He told us a lot of writers make the mistake of literally trying to describe how someone looks, and it usually doesn't work. I think it was better in German. It just came to me and I wrote it down.
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