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City Lights

Fiction, a Halloween treat!

***

We entered the café and headed to the veranda. I sat on one of the tables, he followed.

The veranda has dimmer lights than the indoor area of the café which makes it difficult to see the food served or the possible fly that might jump in, but for me, it doesn’t matter. I’m half blind anyway, even with my eyeglasses on.

I like that area, that dim area. It makes me appreciate the city lights on the other side.

I like the combination of seeing city lights while hearing the waves crash into the seawall and feel the ocean breeze gently caress my face. This place makes me feel like I am between two different worlds, in between chaos and quietude.

I looked at him and he looked back. We sat in silence.

Here’s a guy I met a month ago at this very same place, sitting on this very same chair.

There wasn’t anything special that night. I thought it was just a mere collision of two lonely souls trying to fit in to the universe of love and loss.

The night started with a conversation about love. Who believes and who does not.

I’m, as always, a firm believer of love and all the planets that revolve around it.

He wasn’t.

He was hurt once and he stopped loving. I was hurt more than once, but I loved more.

What is love? He asked.

Love is a feeling, I said, something that makes you happy but can also make you sad. Something that can make you feel the butterflies in your tummy. But love is not always a feeling of rainbows and ponies and butterflies. For when you love, you should expect pain. This is the reality.

That wasn’t our last meeting, a bizarre thing to happen to strangers with opposing notions. The world is small indeed and confusing sometimes.

Love has become the point of argument, at least for some time.  As the subject is not something that can be explained through x and y axis, nor can be found in any reference material. The subject is vast and definitions can vary infinitely.

The arguments stopped somehow, when the reasons met in between, a bizarre thing to happen to acquaintances with opposing notions. The world is round indeed and confusing sometimes.

I looked at the city lights. The sound of waves crashing and the ocean breeze caressing my face made me think of the argument we had on the first night that we met.

What is love? I asked myself.

Love is a feeling. A feeling that is actually new to me. So then, I asked myself again, have I really felt love all along?

What is love? I asked him.

Love is a feeling, he said. Something, I have felt all along.