The Chance Encounter

And then there she was, older, still elegant, and more beautiful than ever. The wild lightness of his youth returned accompanied with an unfamiliar confidence. Excitedly and without hesitation he approached. Guided by an overpowering impulse he had said 'hello' before he knew what he was doing. If he had thought about it he probably would have fearfully admonished himself for being so eager, but there was no time for that and to his surprise he was handling the situation incredibly well, comfortably engaged and in control, simultaneously feeling more like himself than he had ever known and like someone else completely.

She laughed and smiled beautifully. Her own wild lightness had been lost along the way, but in this chance meeting it too returned. They agreed to meet again and waved at one another as they walked away.

He had his life and she had hers in all their strange and difficult ways. After leaving school she married a handsome and athletic man who had quickly descended into alcoholism and grew increasingly abusive. She moved in with her sister and they had lived together ever since, but love had been allusive. The rotating door of unsuitable men spun freely through her life, suffering a short fling here or a faltering relationship there but nothing lasted and she was always thankful when they fizzled out.

He looked at her number in his phone, his finger hovering over it tauntingly. Looking around at his squalid little flat, too unmotivated to clean it, letters demanding payment lying strewn about the floor, dishes in the sink overflowing. He knew he couldn't call her until he was on the right track. It wouldn't take much, but he wouldn't call her until the time was right, and night after night he made a plea to the universe, a prayer of sorts, for a chance, an opportunity to turn his life around.

But his chance never came. Six months later and still he hadn't called her. Resigned to the fact that his chance was never going to come, knowing that no one else was going to help him, he abandoned hope and was astonished to find a new thread of courage within him to keep going.

A week later he had turned his flat from a squalid little hole into a pleasant, dare I say it, cosy little home. He stopped doing all the little things that held him back and by the end of the week he felt like anything was possible. Almost anything.

Still he couldn't call her.

Sat on a park bench with his phone in his hand he asked for a sign. He was either going to call her, or delete her number and try to never think about her again. He looked up to the heavens and asked for a sign. Everything was still, everything was quiet, and he felt the immense pressure of the moment. Flying slightly out of his body he could see himself sitting in the park and the divergent roads of his life stretching out in opposite directions, when he heard a strange rustling of leaves, and the bush directly in front of him began to shake violently. It shook so hard its leaves were falling and then the sound suddenly stopped and the leaves became still and a small Yorkshire Terrier appeared from the bush with a black bag hanging down between its teeth. The dog walked straight over to him and placed the bag at his feet before turning tail and running back into the bush, but not before stopping and glancing back at him with a look he would try to decipher for the rest of his life. The dog was surely trying to tell him something.

He lifted up the bag and inside was $20,000 in crisp unused notes. It was hard to deny such an astonishing sign. He lifted his phone and called her.

Their wedding was a small affair. They weren't from large families and as time had gone by their circle of friends had gradually shrank. The few that were there though knew they were witnessing something rare, something special. Not one person had a negative thought about it.

Breaking with tradition, they spent the morning together. A floating intermingling of everything they were and would ever be, they could feel their future unfurling before them like an invitation.

Excusing herself she kissed him goodbye and went with her sister to get ready. He took in this rare anticipatory moment and felt electrified by his own good fortune. To fall so wildly in love and the unmistakable sign of discovering the very money that will allow them to start their new life together. He could barely believe this was his life. There had not been a single argument or issue that had come between them and everything seemed to be exactly as it should.

He noticed her bag lying open on a chair beside the bed with a little black book sticking out of it as though it wanted to be found. Never normally one to snoop he casually lifted it from the bag.

Pages and pages of men, their names, their attributes, pros and cons and a description of how good they were in bed. His heart sank at the thought of all her other lovers.

Entering the room abruptly he asked her sister to leave. He didn't say a word, just revealed the little black book from behind his back. His heart resurfaced, buoyed by a strange relief, when he saw her sympathetic smile.

She told him how she hated that little book and explained how after every breakup and after every fling she'd would reflect, giving them a page, in the hope it would one day help her know what it was she was searching for and stop the endless cycle of heartbreak and disappointment. She knew it was stupid but the book had become a symbol of her journey, a journey that was now complete.

The ceremony went off without a hitch and the friends they left that night were overcome with wholesome feelings of admiration and support for the lucky couple. All that remained was the wild lightness of love.