''And yet, by heavens, I think my love as rare,
As any she believed in false compare.''
                     -William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

He did not know at the time that this day of all days would
be a crucial turning point in his life. Nor was it.
He was eligibly tall and dressed by the codes of the
Parsadian style advisor, that more than once mentioned him
as his greatest follower. He knew how to put his wear on the
requirements of his daily dynamic needs. It was of course,
by his normal appearance that the rest of his Lower-Parsada
friends would dress... or was it the other way around? Every
day that passed he found it more difficult to determine...  
Naturally, it would not matter to either of them.
His eyes were of the color that was in his mind at the
moment. Primally colored with a darkness that would not have
been detected by the normal eye of the common observer, it
would switch with great glee at each passing second to the
faded color that was persistently winding in his thoughts,
making itself appropriate to each occasion it was present
at, as well as those it was absent from.
His hair was a black; some might say gothic, blond.
Shimmering in the most dim of lights, it would catch the eye
of he who would look at it, if not already distracted by the
eyes.
His hands were pale white, looking somewhat innocent, but
with a powerful grasp.
None would have said he was handsome. Nonetheless he would
not be annulled as one. He was normal.
He took himself to be a normal person. His siblings took him
to be a normal person. So did the society he lived in, his
friends and all that knew of him. He took it to be trivial
that he was normal.
His day was normal. He would go every day to work in the
morning, always going by the same shortcut through the
street of ''Rahas'' and returning through it with no change.
Even if a twist would come to pass it would either join the
companions of the routine or merely pass unnoticed. Yes, it
was all agreed as normal.
But then came the time. He needed to evolve his position.
Not, Heavens forbid, to oppose his normality but to add
another element to it.
Ah, he needed indeed a love. One to stay with him for his
entire life; to hold on to.
''You can think of it all you want mate,'' would say his
friend from the office ''but to actually find one is one of
life's greatest challenges, you know.''
Still his spirit would not break with the threats of a
co-worker, for to the unacknowledged awareness of the whole
of Parsada, he already had his goal set.
She was a young woman from ''Long Visited St.'' whose name
he did not know and she would on repeating occasions visit
his dreams - above her control.
They met at a convention of vegetable lovers in their
every-day grocery shop. They switched gazes as they came
closer to the aisle of tomatoes and he never forgot her
image ever since. She, on the other hand, had not wasted her
time by giving another thought to any of the events that
were afoot at the conclave, till he came to her.
Days to weeks and possibly even to months elapsed before he
met with her again. It was perhaps the interference of
greater powers, perhaps a stroke of luck or perhaps his
endless, obsessional requests from the ''Green Cove Grocery
Store's'' manager for her address that brought them to meet
beneath her apartment.
''Oh! We have met, right? Yes we have! How good it is to see
you again!'' He spoke to her in his almost casual voice that
was slightly tilted by his enthusiasm. She, to his great
surprise, offense and disappointment, was not keen by his
excitement, assumablly due to her not having the puniest of
memories of him.
He fought for ten minutes to remind her that they both had
given one the other meaningful looks that had infatuated her
in his mind and that now he only asks for the sensible and
appropriate act of marriage to take place between them in
order for him to counter his sleepless night and to fulfill
what is demanded by the heavens: for their two souls to come
together at last. It was again to his utter disbelief that
she rejected the divine offer with the gesture of running
from the scene, up town.
Back in the office he spoke again to his friend as they sat
at a desk in front of one another, scanning documents with
little interest. He told his friend about his mysterious
love and their long awaited encounter. He then added without
the smallest taste of bitterness her reaction to his
proposal and his astonishment. His friend issued him an idea
that she may truly not remember him, but he discounted it,
saying it is preposterous since the looks that had been
exchanged between them were by a trivial fact adorned with
the undeniable purity of love.
''Hell, life's a real piece of shit when it regards love.''
His friend encouraged him, but with no need, for it was
merely obvious that the love that was forged was prophesized
to materialize by this given way or the other and it would
be but foolish to doubt that.
Though the original longing that overwhelmed him at first
seemed different than the usual course of his life, very
shortly it became another of the natural passes of his day.
Deciding to take his love's exodus slower, he waited for his
lady of dreams under her building. This time when she
descended and saw him, she recognized him. She tried to run
back up to her apartment, unnoticed, but he caught up to her
before she did.
''How about a date, then?'' He said with his ever-calm
voice. She looked at him with a sigh and finally fell under
the imminent feeling of higher planning as she replied
irritably a positive answer.
He was dressed as himself, nothing special, on the night of
his date. They met in a restaurant near her home. A very
comfortable place, it was, for him to survey her unnerved
face. He glanced at her as she inspected with nervous
twitching his currently scarletly blue eyes.
''I love you.'' He breathed at her. It was all that he said
that night, though repeating it many times and by that
missing all that his soul mate said. It was once he
mentioned his love to her for the thirteenth time that she
had shouted words that were not comprehendable to him and
left, leaving him in his same position. He continued glaring
at the seat when one of the waitresses approached him
politely and asked of the identity of the women. He did not
move his look or changed his tone in his reply that was as
said to the chair.
''Nobody.'' He answered casually. ''She's just my celestial
love.''
After she left the restaurant she ran to her house, thinking
it was over, but he, who did not think of the evening as a
failure, was not about to let his love vanquish from his
heart. Of course, why should he? Hence, he would go after
her, waiting every third day (and second Saturday) beneath
her building, asking her to honor him with her heart. The
reflexive refusal was not at all a cause for his concession,
but simply became a part of his ongoing routine.
She was, agreed by every part of her body, tired from his
visits thrice a week (twice on a lucky week, to her
relief).
''I am not afraid and no more am I annoyed, it is just that
it is becoming quite sad.'' She said one day to her beloved
sister, to whom the story caused concerns. Her sister, as
much as she trusted her, was troubled by the peculiar story
and told it to her husband, to whom she devolved at any rate
a complete account of her day, as they both, beaming with
their love for one another, spoke in bed. ''Accounting good
matters to be told,'' she told her husband of her sister and
of the mad lover ''she finds this insane man amusing.'' They
both laughed about it with discreet irony.
''And I hear that he goes there everyday now! He follows her
to every little corner! And he knows he has no chance! He
knows he is fooling himself! What a nutter.'' The husband
told the story as it developed to a friend of his whom he
cared in his heart very deeply about. They spoke about it in
their common work place, whilst leaving the office at the
late night. His friend laughed with pity at the mad man who
fought for a mad and hopeless cause, but stopped quickly,
for it was time for him to go after his own love that was
waiting currently at her apartment in ''Long Visited St.''.
Thus it would go on and on... Gossip that was broadly
floating amongst them who are involved, troubled them with
thoughts, how could this insanity keep on going? And yet in
his own opinion, nothing special was in motion. Indeed, his
obsession, in a round about way, was now truly an occurrence
that was in accord with the trivial turns of his daily
events. Yes, of course all that viewed it found it an
unsettling circle of events, but he found it the most common
of things - therefore, to his understanding there was
nothing out of the ordinary. The endless rejections that she
had given him were altogether adjusted to his expectations
and hereby, although, he quite believed in the necessity of
this routine, he slowly got bored with it. As matters seem
to bore him.
On the other side, she, who insisted that there is no need
for the involvement of the police since it is just a
deranged pathetic person with no true danger, held in
herself as well a great boredom to the scenario that was
falling onto her and was restraining her.
He sensed that weakness. They were both bored - and that was
the time to bring a change to their love! Essential it was
to keep the mating progress in motion and as much as he
himself had no true prospect for change, he decided to bring
their intimate relationship to the next level... once more.
That day had come. He did not believe that that day, however
grand the event that was going to take place would be, would
be anything special. She didn't think as well that anything
would change under the dim enlightenment of her obvious
assumption about her relationship with the stalker. It was
against all odds, the move that he planned to take,
including the odds of his truest.    
''Good luck then.'' His friend devoted him his careful
greeting as they both left the office earlier than usual to
purchase a ring.
When the sky was gleaming solemnly with calm apprehension of
the evening, he was already carrying a velvet-covered wooden
box with a ring of diamonds from the most praiseworthy of
making in the gloom of his pocket. The ring was more anxious
than he was as he walked up ''Long Visited St.'' whilst all
around was quieter than usual due to the sanctity of some
occasion that did not conflict with his normal progression
and was thus unknown to him. This holiday, without his
realization, consumed all of Parsada with its enchantment.
The wind was whistling softly a tune that grew louder by the
moment, as if trying to catch his attention but in vain. For
his elaborate mind was in its normal vague as it
concentrated on his love.
After a certain duration of misted observation and aimless
walk he was in front of the apartment building where his
life shall not change. Without the least of rituality or
formality, he went up the stairs until reaching the claimed
apartment.  
He knocked on the door once or twice. When it was opened she
greeted him - while in a wear that was half (if not less)
missing. Her disbelieving and rashly vexed leer met
instantly a sooth grin. She was above all, speechless. Due
to that, he started to speak first:
''Hey.'' He petted the box in his pocket as he noticed a man
in the back of the apartment, with the anxiety he never had.
Ribbons of an already finished celebration were scattered on
the coach the man was sitting on who too was only half
dressed.
She was attempting to look more outraged every second as his
grin was frozen on his face and was the most active
attraction on his otherwise blank features. She wanted to
say something, positioning her speech to his as to now red
eyes but swallowed her words as he came off first:
''Will you, my dearest and most sacred love of all, give me
the honor of your hand in marriage?''
As her face was giving the notion of obvious sympathy, he
already began to expect. He expected her to reject him, he
expected to be sent back with reluctance, he expected her to
even shout at him while vigorously thrusting him from the
entrance door, down the street and up a block away all the
while crying and demurring to the charm of the night with
her notion of his foul stupidity. What he did not expect for
her to do was for her to, by that longful incoherent act,
fall for his pursuit in the same prayer he was giving in his
heart, to allow her soul to its innocent and grandly epic
infatuation towards the man who from a mere vegetable-lovers
meeting promised his love, and to surrender to the flowing
emotion of the greatest 'L' Amour' ever told in both of
their life times by the ever so meaningful gesture of a kiss
that would thus say: ''Yes.''
She didn't.
And so he left the challenge and paced to his own home,
glowing with brown eyes and with no resentment or feelings
of any sort. Altogether, he knew now that although this was
not a crucial turning point in his own life, by the offering
of love he gave her, to her it would forever stand as a time
of change whereas for the first time true love was fighting
for her and this sign, no matter what, would always be
marked on her soul. He knew that now.
At the time, she did not.








Dedicated to Alma and Orit