the view from the other side

This was turning out into a productive afternoon she thought as she looked up from her papers around the piazza which was lazily busy with the usual tourists enjoying a drink in the late afternoon sun.

She felt a prickle of consciousness as she looked around and found the cause as her gaze settled upon the long form of a man leaning against a pillar across the street. As their eyes met she realized that he had been watching for sometime now and was waiting to look into her eyes.

The instant pleasure in the subconscious of finding someone fascinated with her quickly underwent a morph from pleasure to annoyance at the assured arrogance to pleasant surprise at the constancy and depth of the glance. She was amused at her own predictability. He seemed to register the shift in emotion as imperceptibly as the change in her expression had been, leaving him amused also.

The moment stretched as they looked out the windows of their souls leaving a little crack open for the other to peek in for that fraction of time.

As she explored what lay beneath the cool façade she was reminded of another such lazy afternoon eons ago. The memories of ‘flash and burn’ bought back a kaleidoscope of images and emotions fanning embers that she thought lay dormant. But he seemed a veteran, wearing his scars well and unfazed by what he found though the chinks in her façade. The wry grin and open expression spoke volumes of the past and the possibilities.

As the visual exchange bordered on eternity a sudden quick breeze blew across the piazza taking her papers with it.

PS: Creative

there is a picture in my mind.....

.....like a dream
which needed to be held down
before it floated away
like a wayward cloud
on a summer day.

i have never used a paint-brush. but i want to paint you a picture of this feeling, this thought, this image in my mind.

it is pleasant, bright. there is a woman sitting in a piazza. some paperwork spread out around her at the table. a cup sitting at the edge. an expression of satisfaction on her face as she is looking up into your amused eyes, as though she is begining to smile back at you. like she knows what's on our mind. like she's about to share something funny with you.

you smile as you look at her.

then you concentrate on the half formed smile, you look more intently at the picture, you realize there is a little sardonic twist at the edges of that smile. then if you look deep enough into her eyes, you see a shade of sorrow, a hint of pain, endured over a lifetime, valiantly fought against and kept at bay, glowering embers adding an undying spark to this picture of mystery.

what is she writing? what is in the cup?

PS: Creative - after watching salaam namaste. if this is what romantic movies do to me...... help me god! :P