Prephilonymity
[pree-FIL-o-nim-ih-tee] noun. The act of falling in love before even knowing a person’s name.
ENGL 100B is a class of 50 students who all seem to know each other, and I sit alone near the back. I took this class because the one I wanted to take was full, and I’m a biology student who needs the credit.
I notice him first in the small crowd. Like the others, he sits talking with a couple other students. He wears a white t-shirt and blue jeans. His hair is chestnut brown, his skin a few shades lighter. His descriptors are average; he is not. He is beautiful. Intelligence lights up his eyes, humour forms the soft curve of his mouth.
The class settles as the professor writes on the chalkboard, then dives into Shakespeare’s sonnets. A lot of the language flies over my head, but I can see the brown-haired boy taking diligent notes. He writes with his left hand, and his fingers are long and slim. I wonder if he plays piano. He raises his hand at one point and discusses Sonnet 116, and I am struck by the softness of his voice and the eloquence of his argument. He reads a section of the poem aloud:
“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken”
He stops then, and the prof continues his lecture. As if the brown-haired boy can feel my gaze, he turns, and our eyes meet.
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Alana S. Leonard
A long-time lover of reading and writing.
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Chance Meeting
It’s been a long time. I stare at the man before me, trying to think of what to say—what I could say, what I want to say, what I should say. But the only thing that escapes my mouth is a whisper of breath. He seems to be at a loss too, but he raises his hand in a tentative greeting.
By Alana S. Leonardabout a year ago in Fiction
Comments (1)
I can feel her fizzing!