IN RETROSPECT
-“It was my honor to meet you, Good night.” (*Kissing the lady’s hand and gazing at her brown eyes.)
-”Thank you, You too.” She said with attitude.
***On a pair of her white velvet gloves is where I placed my forever kiss, a cathartic one, a kiss that left me craving for her scent of fussiness. Though I have never seen such a beautiful and astounding sight until I met her, the mystery was blooming in her eyes, and she became my favorite color, my most heard tone, and my delightful taste.***
I held the long stem of my glass of champagne, chasing the pleasure after one sip and another, as I was involved in a conversation about business, with a bunch of aristocratic category of people, bragging about their fake life full of emptiness and nothingness. I, _deliberately_, stepped towards the open window and fixed my exhausted body against the wall, that spot was my instant escape.
As I admired the leaves, dancing to the rhythm of the blowing wind, a beautiful lady suddenly showed up, to set my heart aflutter with her engrossing appearance. I _barely, swallowed the couple drops of champagne stuck in my throat, my eyes were lost in her details and drinking in her mesmerizing lips that were perfectly lined with red, and most of the time in her slender waist clad in black” Bias Cut” dress.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her, the way she is greeting people, with calm demeanor tells everything. I eyed her details for a second and a million others and admired the corner of her eyes crinkling,_from the lace that covered her tilt hat_, every time she smiles.
I roamed around myself, _unconsciously_. How can a stranger mess with my thoughts the way She did?
My furtive moves set doubts in me, and I couldn’t clearly read between my lines.
-“What do I want from her? My mind whispered.
-”A dance.” My mind answered.
I walked over to her, _calmly _, that’s what everybody thought, that’s what I also thought, but I might not show any outward signs of how much my thoughts are messed with and dominated by the gentle shape of her body. Although I have danced with many so far, her posture made me undermine the few steps that I have learned for the past 10 years.
-“May I have this dance”. I offered her my hands pointing my lenses towards hers.
She slightly left her chin up, eyed me with a sharp look as if she was mentally analyzing my thoughts along with my aims, in the pensive way she reacted, I found my answer.
“With pleasure, Sir,” she said, gently.
The piano man launched our first dance with high notes of fascination and bewitchery, and all I can recite from that unique moment is the way my mind retraced a chain of “IF” questions, I wished, _for a second_, that I could brush them off of my head.
*A voice echoed within me, while we were moving in slow motion:
-”What if I lose my dexterity to every meticulous step along with the melody of a classical piano, and in front of her loving eyes!”
-”What if I grip her slender waist with my lost fingers and let them explore between her measured details!”
-”What if, I,_obliviously_, bury all my desires for her in her neck, with gentle kisses dampen with lust!”
It wasn’t until I was fully aware that I truly woke up and realized that I couldn’t tighten the urge of not having her in my arms and feel her, heated gloved hands freezing me out, then, I wondered, what’s the meaning of my life, _henceforth_,without the two middle letters “if”?
*The phonograph _independently_, shut off …
I woke up to the fading sound of the classical piano from the thirties, the melody we danced to, the first time we met. Her face keeps on showing up in my dreams like a perennial guest, and the susceptible portrays of her, on that night and forever. I can’t sum up what I have felt for her in a single look to a wide sky nor in a dusty picture_of us as bride and groom_ hanging on the wall, the only thing that might add some colors to my life is the little corner next to the window, where she ever first appeared and stole my heart, I chase after her smell in every night breeze, I crave for her mild voice between the leaves, and even here, alone, beneath the distracting silence, I hear her voice, a whisper from her forming a gentle answer:
-”With pleasure, Sir” … I wish I can tell you again, how much you made my night, with the very few words you said then, and how much I felt, _my love, for the first time, the sweetness of the thirty seconds in the thirties.
To the one that has my heart the most,
In my heart you live, In haven, you rest …
written by Sabrine Dachraoui.
