MOSAIC

A SHORT STORY

This is a short story about love, the type of love shared by a man and a woman. There is no life partner or any of that other stuff that would suggest love between those other than a man and a woman. In fact, this story is about a man who had run into an old flame and from that moment he had laid eyes on her his heart steamed over. His tongue got tied, his body temperature went up, and awkwardness took over an otherwise extremely confident man. She was beautiful with eyes as big as Texas, brown and lustrous eyes that when you into them you look into an eternity of beauty. She was the one who could bowl any man over. Her skin was like silk, not satin not anything of this earth, silk is the closest I can come to describe the touch when a man feels her hand upon his weathered and rugged face.

He is shopping and accidentally runs into her with his cart. It could be at the mall, Wal-mart or even the flea market. The reaction is the same, that pilot light that just barely stays lit erupts into an inferno. Just one look and smile from her and he falls like the Roman Empire falls to the barbarians of the north, weak and helpless. She is ecstatic to see her long lost warrior. He becomes jelly just like before, when he first met her. Maybe that is why it has been so long since the last time he saw her. Perhaps he avoided her like the plague because he got all tied up like playing twister. This time it would be different, this time he will respond like a man who is confident.

She says, “hi”! He just dribbles. “Just like old times”, she chuckles. He just dribbles like a baby who just received a bath and is as content as a pig in… well you get the picture. “Why does this happen to me every time I see her”, he reflects. All the while she is carrying on telling her life story and wishing he was a part of it. With silence before him and fear at his back he was encased in an icy block of inaction. However, the more she spoke the more she willed a smile upon his face and these three words to his lips, “I love you”, he bellowed, then followed it up in a whisper of the same three words, “I love you”. Now it was the Nubian Princess who was a lost for words but was abundant with desire for her long lost love. A match made in heaven in this very short story.

BREATHLESS

Thoughts of painting the sky
breathless when I look into your eyes.

Artistic expression once and again
inspired by your smile.

My nightmares fade as my dreams creep,
that is where I possess you.

You are on the canvas of my soul
leaving me utterly breathless.