Examinations And Expression

Have you ever walked out of an exam that had been hanging over you for weeks, after finishing early and feeling like it went pretty well, causing you to be filled with the most intense certainty that you must have forgotten something, or been in the wrong exam or actually fallen asleep at the desk and dreamt the success?

That was the sensation i had at around 11 o'clock this morning as i left the Political Theory exam that has been terrifying me for the past week. It seemed anti-climactic, like the part of a movie where the good guys think they've won against the big bad, but the wise old one knows it was far too easy and there's a bigger bad around the corner. It was nowhere near horrific to justify the amount of fear and tension it had caused and that makes me suspicious.

Until i actually get the results back i guess i'll just have to put up with this sensation that it was all a trick and i'm going to find out i somehow did it all wrong any minute now.

With that out of the way and my next exam, on American politics, not until the 25th of May i think i'm going to have a couple of relatively relaxed days before launching into revision for that, though compared to today's exam i'm practically coasting on a wave of confidence.

I'll probably watch a couple of films and read a bit of a book that has absolutely nothing to do with political theory. I'd like to do a bit of writing but the inconvenience of having an utter lack of ideas is getting in the way of that. During the last year of 6th form and the first of University writing creatively was an outlet for me, a way to work out some of the stress and worries i had; it was a good form of escapism for me but recently i've not managed to write anything i actually like.

It's frustrating because i would love to find that spark again, the kind of spark that saw me write an 80,000 word story in around 8 months. Rereading that story now i'm very aware of it's limitations and the fact that it's not all that great, but while i was writing it i was genuinely happy because i was caught up in imagining this world and playing with the best ways to put it on paper. It was the creative experience as much as the actual output that i enjoyed and it's that same experience that i want to rediscover.

I've been looking over a few of the half finished or barely started story ideas that litter the documents folder on my computer but sadly looking over them i can see why i abandoned most of them. There's only one which is nearly finished and i'm just missing a chapter to precede the final two that are already written, to make the pay off feel justified and natural rather than forced. All the rest just seem cheesy, lacking the quality of character or concept that justified the cheesiness and allowed me to keep going with the few stories i have actually finished.

I'm going to spend the evening watching the second Championship semi-final (i'll write about the Forest one once i've had a bit of time to recover from the disappointment) and brainstorming ideas for a new story/the missing chapter of the short story that is nearly finished.

For now i'll leave you with a song off Frank Turner's new album 'England Keep My Bones', released at the start of June.

Let Me Tell You A Story

Tonight's blog is a short story i wrote a year or two ago, one which i've always been quite proud of as it was an interesting experiment. As most people will know i write quite a bit and have made several attempts at writing fiction. All but one of the stories i've written have been based in the here and now, inspired by and working around the people and relationships i see around me on a daily basis, but this was different. I guess this would fall within the 'fantasy' genre if you were desperate to put a label on it and the nature of that school of writing granted me a freedom i haven't usually enjoyed to stray into the world of metaphors and figurative speech.

I post this because i assume two things; Firstly that if you're reading my blog you have at least a vague interest in what i have to say, regardless of whether it's about current affairs or the products of my imagination. Secondly that you know the kind of guy i am and so you won't be shocked by the nature of the story. Here goes, i titled it "The Statue" but it's very much a working title.

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The boy was sat on the balcony of his bedroom, enjoying the feeling of the sunshine on his skin and the breeze through his hair. He was staring out across the countryside, over the river which split the visible land almost perfectly in two and was flowing fast and strong with the added water of the recently melted snows. The gradual shift from white to green as the predominant colour of the landscape had pleased him; the beginning of spring always seemed like a hopeful time to him, a time with promise and potential.

He paid little attention to the herds of cattle, even happier than him to see the green shoots of grass return. The land was fertile and most of it was used for various forms of farming but his focus was on the mountain which dominated the horizon.

The snow was slowly retreating up its sides, driven back by the comparative warmth of spring after the cold of a harsh winter. It still clung to almost the entire top third of the mountain, gleaming in the late morning sunshine. The mountain was out of bounds to the boy, by order of his parents who felt it held too greater danger for him.

The very fact that it was forbidden made the mountain almost unbearably desirable to the boy, for he was in many ways a perfectly normal boy, and it is common knowledge that to make something infinitely more tempting and interesting to a boy you merely have to make the thing forbidden.

However as the boy had grown up, his wish to visit the mountain had changed in nature from merely wanting to disobey his parents in an attempt to claim independence and make himself seem grown up, to a longing to visit one particular point on the mountain.

Over halfway up the steep and rocky sides of the mountain was a monument. Built long before even his grandparent’s time, the tall gold and marble statue was visible even from where the boy sat now, more than a day’s walk away. He could see it was there, could almost make out some details, but it was indistinct, he wished to see it closer. Almost 10ft tall, the statue was that of a woman. The boy himself had never seen the statue close up, but everyone who had ever seen it said the woman was almost painfully beautiful, that the expression on her face was so serene and kind that it was impossible not to feel a great calm and sense of well being fill you as you looked upon it.

The mystery was a major factor in the boys consuming interest in the statue, the fact that it was reported to be so beautiful, yet only a handful of people had ever seen it, that you had to earn the beauty, made him long to make the journey to see her.

More than once he had walked to the limit of his family’s land which skirted around the base of the mountain. From here the gradient of the slope meant that the statue disappeared from view, hidden behind outcrops of rock that looked ominously sharp. On two separate occasions he’d even taken a rucksack full of the equipment that his common sense and a climbing book had suggested would be needed for the climb, much of it stolen from his father’s supplies. He’d stood at the base, staring up in the direction which he knew the statue lay in; he’d stood there for hours, daring himself to start climbing, but in the end he’d turned around and gone home, replacing the things he’d stolen and hoping his parents were none the wiser.

If it had merely been a case of wanting to disobey his parents, he’d already have attempted the climb. But as he’d grown up he’d begun to realise that his parents rules had reasons behind them, that the climb was quite probably beyond the skills of an inexperienced young boy.

One of the reasons why so few people had ever seen the statue up close was that the climb was considered highly treacherous as well as long. It was a full days climb for an experienced climber to the statue, meaning you had to stay overnight up there.

The knowledge that there were several good reasons why he should give up on his ambition to see the statue did not serve in any way to diminish his urge to make the climb and see it. The very idea of its beauty captivated his mind in a way that nothing had even come close to before.

The obsession did not lessen with time or distractions, the boy attempted to fill his life with friends, with music and with sport; he showed a particular interest in rock climbing, and he was by all normal standards, a happy boy, but it could not be denied that he felt like something was missing, like to be complete he must visit the statue.

His parents had at first feared he would do something stupid and injure himself in the process, but as time passed their fears for his physical safety subsided slightly. However the idea of him coming to some serious physical harm had always been only half their reason for forbidding the child from climbing the mountain. Many of the climbers who had visited the statue had spoken on their return of things they had previously viewed as beautiful seeming dull in comparison, that the rest of the world held nothing for them that could compare to the statue. This realisation had led many of the climbers to suffer from depression, for it is fair to say the statue, though the most beautiful thing they had ever witnessed, had spoilt the rest of the world for them.

Most people live their lives in the pursuit of beauty and happiness, so it is an interesting and unfortunate thought, that to succeed in that pursuit would not actually make you happy, but depress you; for if you know you have seen the most beautiful sight, and felt the purest of happiness, then what is there to search for, what is there to keep you going?

The boy’s parents were terrified; they couldn’t bare the idea that their child could find himself drifting at such an early age, without hope or drive, so they had done everything in their power to make sure he didn’t even attempt to reach the statue, claiming it was just that the climb itself was too dangerous.

The boy himself could not effectively explain to his friends, his parents or himself, why it mattered so much that he see the statue. To put the intensity of his desire into words seemed both impossible and undesirable. He didn’t consider himself skilled enough in the ways of the words, to do justice to the emotions which the statue evoked in him.

The boy sat on the balcony, his thoughts orbiting around the statue, circling it, both drawn to and afraid of thinking directly about it.

His gaze was momentarily drawn to a bird of prey soaring high on currents of air, it’s wings spread majestically so as to make the task of flying and hunting seem almost effortless. As always when he looked upon the birds that flew overhead, he felt a great jealousy towards it. That bird could visit the statue whenever it wanted, could choose to soar all the way there. To the boys mind it was unfair, that something like a bird which would have no real appreciation of the beauty of the statue, could visit it whenever it wanted, yet he, who would cherish even a second of looking at it, was unable to go once.

The boy continued to grow, going through life as a fairly cheerful and successful person, becoming a young man who was loved by many, and loved many in return. The older he got, the more the statue scared him almost as much as it amazed him. He was now old enough to appreciate the commitment that goes into loving something or someone. To accept your own love for something is to accept the pain and fear that would come with losing the item of your affection. He knew it wasn’t wise to love something he’d never even seen, but he knew now that it was love that he felt, for the statue, and for what it represented.

When he thought about it he realised the features of the statue in his imagination were not always the same. That as time changed they shifted, taking on elements of the girls he knew, the girls he found attractive. The thought didn’t bother him, for he was certain that the statue would be so beautiful that nothing his imagination could create would even begin to do it justice. It struck him though that as of late the statue always resembled one girl in particular. She lived near him and he saw her nearly every day. He didn’t deny for a moment that she was stunning; in fact he believed her to be the most beautiful girl he had ever met and her smile at times captivated him to such a degree that he lost his grasp on his location in time and space such was the way it filled his thoughts, nor that he enjoyed her company; if he could choose to be with anyone for any length of time it would be her. But he simply did not feel that it mattered overly much, for from his point of view, he wasn’t interested in finding a girl, his heart and his mind were committed to the statue, for better or for worse.

His friends were frustrated by him much of the time, for his obsession with the statue blinded him to much of what he could enjoy in life. It was common for his attention to drift away from them to the statue, even whilst they were talking to him. They pitied the girls who liked him, for it seemed they were competing with something which could not be beaten. There was one girl who it saddened them to see was just as beyond the boy’s attention as everyone else; for she was beautiful and kind and intelligent, and she loved him despite the disinterest with which he often treated her. She was known for the skill with which she could carve wood, a hobby of hers, and she was widely considered to be a highly skilled and creative. The boys friends wished there was some way to make the boy realize the real happiness he could feel with the girl, rather than this to them unhealthy love for a statue.

In many ways the boy’s friends were right, he would be better loving the girl than the statue, but they failed to understand the complexity of the statues appeal to the boy.

The boy did not just love the statue because of its mysterious beauty, he loved it because of what it represented. To him the statue spoke of perfection, of his first and truest love, of the care and passion with which it must have taken to create such a statue. It reminded him that there are things of true beauty in a world which at times seemed dark and cruel to him. It taught him to appreciate the potential within human beings for acts of great creativity and emotion.

One day, near his 20^th birthday, the girl declared to him the strength of her affection, telling him that she loved him and handing him a perfectly carved wooden heart, telling him that he had hers and she wished he would let her have his. His reply was kind, and to his mind considerate, but in the negative and the girl left with tears in her eyes. The boy felt anguish at causing the girl pain. He had been thrown by her declaration, for he had never truly considered the affection between them to be more than that of mild interest. But the statue meant so much to him that though he attempted to consider it rationally and comprehensively, there was only going to be one outcome. His heart belonged to the statue, it would have been wrong to give the girl any other impression. He placed the small, smooth piece of wood in the pocket of his shirt so that it rested over his own heart and had gone to meet his friends.

The boy’s friends were furious with him when they heard what had taken place, for to them it seemed inconceivable that their intelligent and generally kind and caring friend would be so blind and stupid. The conversation between the boy and his friends grew heated and the boy stormed off, angry and upset that his friends could not even try to understand what the statue meant, that it was more than stone and metal, but the basis for his beliefs, his attitude and his hopes.

Still in a state of anger and confusion the boy returned home and made a decision as much informed by anger as any logical motive, to climb the mountain that day and see the statue. His stubborn and intense love for the statue had meant that he had defended his decision when his friends had challenged him, with a passion and certainty that was evaporating with every beat of his heart, bit by bit.

Like anybody whose faith is challenged, the boy was desperate for some affirmation, some proof that the belief he had felt all his life for the beauty and power of the statue was not misplaced. The very thought that it could be filled the boy with a sick feeling.

In his state of near panic and certain disillusionment, he set off towards the mountain. The walk to the mountain base took much less time these days, his long and strong legs allowing him to cover the distance in a matter of minutes. The sun was high in the sky as he started to climb the mountain; at times he could walk normally and at others he was climbing almost vertically, relying on all the skills he’d spent his teenage years learning to make any ground.

Several hours passed and he continued to climb, stopping only briefly to drink from the flask of water that he had brought with him. He turned at one point, to look back towards the village and saw that the sun was just beginning to sink below the line of the forest which bordered the village on the far side from where he was now stood.

Realising he needed to reach the statue before nightfall he pressed on and it was only another quarter of an hour before he reached a small plateau. He could see that after quite an easy 10 metre climb further he would be on the plateau which held the statue, he could just see the finger tips of the statues right arm, which he knew from reports was raised above her head as if to wave at the village far below. His heart started to race and his mind was filled with an intensity of anticipation that had him laughing out loud to himself at the thought of actually seeing the statue.

He started to scramble up the slope when a misplaced foot stemming from over excitement and poor light sent him falling face forward towards the rock. He managed to get his hands up to protect his face, but his chest and knees took the full brunt of the fall. As his chest hit the earth he felt an intense pain in the left side of his chest; a blow which felt like it could have broken a rib. He reflexively rolled away and as he did so the shirt pocket which had been torn up by the stones, spilled out the girl’s wooden heart and it fell to the floor on the lower plateau. Moving slowly and gingerly he climbed down to it and picked it up. He turned it over between his fingers, and felt tears start to form in the corners of his eyes and his knees went weak as he looked at it; half of the heart was as immaculate as when she had first given it to him, the other was scratched and dented. His knees gave out and he sat down on the rocky plateau. He couldn’t quite understand why it hurt him so much to see the heart like this, but hurt it did, an intense pain in his own chest and a lump in his throat that threatened to choke him caused him to wish there was some way to undo the damage, take back the mistake.

The girl had carved this so carefully, clearly putting a great degree of emotion into the piece of wood, and he realised as he sat on the cold earth, that that effort was a sign of the strength of her affection. The statue created haze lifted for a moment and he understood that he should have been aware of her emotions long before it came to as open a declaration as the one earlier that day. She loved him, she had loved him for a long time, and he had been blind to it, so filled with his passion for the statue.

Abruptly the boy felt that he was no longer sure which mistake he most wanted to take back; the misplaced step, or the misinformed and misjudged words he’d said to her earlier. The wood was cold between his fingers as he ran his thumb slowly over the bumps and scratches inflicted on the wood by the stone, and it pained him to know that he had inflicted worse on the warm and beating heart of the girl.

It was now night, the mountain lit solely by the moonlight and the stars. Under that silvery light the boy was filled with a simultaneously familiar and confusing longing. He longed with all his might to see something awe inspiring, to wonder at the complexity, serenity and passion in the world, to feel that belief in love, creativity and pure beauty rewarded. But as he glanced over his shoulder towards where the statue stood, closer to him now than ever before in his life, he found that the longing did not draw him up the mountain but down. He wished to walk through the village which he knew would be silent by now, to see the thatched houses and listen to the rushing sound of the river. He longed to walk to the girl’s door, to wait there patiently and then as light came and she awoke, to see her, to talk to her, to hold her and try and heal the heart he had hurt.

The night passed and slowly the boy drifted asleep under the watchful gaze of the crescent moon. One hand was behind his head in an attempt to make the cold rock more comfortable, the other rested on his chest, fingers wrapped around the piece of wood, holding it tight as if he feared it would disappear while he slept.

Eventually day came and the boy was awoken by the cry of an eagle soaring high overhead. He realised as he slowly and stiffly stood up that he no longer need be jealous of the bird; it would be the simplest thing to climb the last little slope now in the light, and look at the statue in all its undoubted glory. He had just as much freedom to view it as the eagle. He could finally look at it after all the years of waiting and wishing. But he didn’t want to. He felt only the mildest of curiosity at seeing the statue, for the invisible rope which had gone from his heart to the statue, pulling him towards it, guiding him through his life, giving him a certainty of purpose and meaning, was still attached just as firmly to his heart, but it no longer bound him to the statue. His point of meaning, his basis of belief and cause of hope was back in the village and so he followed that guide just as he had for the past 15 years, picking his way down the mountain as sure of foot as he was of purpose.

As he walked towards the village he reflected that many people would expect him to feel regret that he had “wasted” so much time on his obsession with the statue. But he didn’t feel it was wasted time and he definitely didn’t regret it. The statue was the reason and the cause for his belief in love and beauty; it had brought him great hope and happiness over the years and had brought him to this place as the person he was; a person experiencing for the first time the all consuming thrill of falling for someone who loves you back.

He hadn’t needed to see the statue in the end, for he had finally grasped that everything that the statue had ever and could ever promise to mean to him, was completely dwarfed by the need to see the girl’s smile, to look into her eyes and see that there was still hope, that he could repair the damage done to her heart and start to earn the love she had so generously and beautifully shown him.

He had by now reached the door of the girl’s house and by his reckoning it was around 10 o’clock in the morning. He stood there, his shirt torn and his hair a mess, but the feel of the wooden heart in his hand told him not to worry about that. He turned briefly and looked back the way he had come; he could see the statue glistening in the morning sunshine, and he felt his heart fill with hope. He smiled to himself as he knocked on the door.

He could feel his own heart of tissue and blood beating hard as he waited, hopeful but nervous. Slowly the door opened and there stood the girl. The boy stared into her eyes for several seconds as her face went from upset to surprised to confused to hopeful. The boy reached out and took her hand in his. He took a step towards her and neither of them spoke as he slowly raised her hand until it rested on his chest, touching the bare skin through the ripped shirt. The boy knew the girl could feel his heart pounding beneath his chest. The smile which had captivated him even while he was blind slowly crept across her face and the boy felt almost light headed, a ringing noise filling his ears as he took in the beauty of a smile on her lips because of him

The boy waited while the girl’s eyes were on her hand as they stood there in silence for more than a minute, then slowly the girl’s eyes looked up and as their gaze met, the boy spoke.

“It’s yours.”

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Today's song is one i only heard for the first time this evening but i'm liking it quite a lot, it's called "Lemonade" and it's by a band called "Braids".

Enjoying the little moments

This update is going to have a literary theme.

Firstly one of my friends, Abbie, bought me a book for my 20th birthday which i began reading last night. It's called "One Day" and is by David Nicholls. It looks pretty promising both from what Abbie had previously told me about it and from the first chapter. I've been looking for a new novel to read, something to read as an alternative to histories of American politics and excerpts from classical political theorists.

Printed on the page that precedes the first chapter is a quote from a truly fantastic novel, "Great Expectations", the classic by Charles Dickens. I'd forgotten the quote since i last read the novel, but seeing it again last night i remembered just how perfectly i feel it captures a pretty abstract concept that has always intrigued me.

"That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it and think how different its course would have been. Pause, you who read this, and think for a long moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns and flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on that memorable day."

I love that quote because it sums up the idea that a single day, 1 out of hopefully tens of thousands at least, can change your entire life. That the beginnings of a chain of events can be humble yet affect so much which follows. We're rarely aware of the importance of a day until the gift of hindsight is given to us. It's a very similar idea to that of 'the butterfly effect', the idea that even the slightest change in our history could produce a drastically different present and future. It does make a slight mockery of the degree to which we believe we have control over our own lives. How much control can we really have unless we analyse every tiny decision to the point of getting nothing done? Most of the time we just have to let life run it's course, enjoy all the little moments and hope that we don't end up regretting one of more of the myriad of things we do each day.

Also it is impractical to try and attribute all the praise of blame for an eventual destination on an individual decision. So many little decisions combine to bring us to the big decisions which impact on our lives in a more distinct way. Without any one of the many smaller choices we may never have reached the place where that bigger choice would have been possible.

So there you go, this is the kind of thing that goes on in my head when i should really be focussing on something useful.

I don't have any deep or important point to make about this next quote, i include it solely because it's one of my favourite quotes from any book and when i was typing out the Dickens quote this one sprang to mind as well. It's from "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen.

"We can all begin freely –a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement"

Right, the rest of this update is going to be a short story i wrote quite a while ago, the summer before i came to university, but it's one i've not grown to dislike over time which is quite unusual.

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Kindred Spirits

A quick glance at his phone told him it was nearly half 11. He’d been dragged into town by a couple of his friends, determined despite past evidence that he would have fun in the bars in the city centre. Now both friends had wandered off, their attentions drawn to girls who’d caught their eye. So he was sat alone at a long and fairly empty bar, perched on a tall bar stool that looked like it was straight out of an IKEA catalogue, all cheap plastic and shiny metal legs. The bar he was in was very student friendly, almost seeming to make a unique selling point of everything being cheap but cheerful.

The beer bottle in his hands offered some minor distraction, both through drinking it at a rate that gave away his discomfort and boredom, and through playing with it, tearing the label, spinning it around, doing anything menial to take his mind off the night. He really wasn’t cut out for the clubbing scene, far too busy living inside his head to enjoy the thrills of a night out. He couldn’t help feeling incredibly jealous as he watched the confident boys and girls of the city meeting, greeting and pulling. He felt like he was doomed to always over think things, to complicate what should be a simple and fun night out into a tumultuous and confusing mess of emotions. He watched people finding a connection, even if only a brief one, with people they’d never met, and he felt that loneliness that had been weighing heavily on him recently, press down all the harder.

He stared unseeingly straight ahead of himself, into the mirror which stretched along the entire length of the bar, but he wasn’t paying much attention to his reflection, his eyes had simply settled on that point to avoid making eye contact with anyone. He resolved himself to wait out another half hour, have another beer and then go home, either with his mates, or alone. He wouldn’t resent them wanting to stay, he wasn’t self obsessed enough to think that they should share his reasons for not enjoying the night; they were more confident creatures than he was, and were both single. This was exactly the kind of night they were supposed to enjoy. Part of him knew that it was the sort of night he should enjoy.

He glanced to his right, half hoping to catch the attention of the barman and order another bottled beer. He’d still got a third of the last bottle left, but he reckoned that the sooner he drank that and drank another one, the sooner he could feel he had fulfilled his promise to himself and could leave. The barman was busy; pouring what seemed like a fairly epic number of pints for a rowdy bunch of lads. The group of guys were all stood around the bar, laughing at each others jokes a little bit too loudly to be completely natural. They had arrived at the bar about 10 minutes ago, clearly already several pints south of sober and though they were in good spirits they had changed the atmosphere in the room by drowning out anyone else’s conversations with their banter and seemingly competitive laughter. He’d not really paid them too much attention until now, having no interest in joining them or annoying them, but as he looked towards the barman he saw reflected in the mirror a sight which focussed all his attention on that section of the bar.

Sat at the edge of that storm of alcohol and testosterone, perched as far to one side of a bar stool as physically possible, and still leaning further away, was a girl. Next to the crowd of guys, so noisy and unpredictable, she looked so small and vulnerable that he felt a sudden urge to protect this girl, even though he’d never seen her before and she probably didn’t need protecting. He imagined he’d be a long way down on her list of the guys in the bar who she’d want to protect her anyway. As he continued to watch the girl in the mirror, he was surprised to find it had taken him this long to notice just how stunning she was. She had shoulder length brunette hair, with a fringe which she seemed to be using as a shield against the world, a slightly tanned, very cute heart shaped face and delicate, kissable lips, but what struck him most was her eyes, peering out from under the fringe, they were such a dark shade of brown that at this distance they almost looked black.

Suddenly she glanced up, away from the drink in her hand that she’d been focussing on, and her eyes met his in the mirror. With a start he realised he’d been indirectly staring at her, so absorbed in both her situation and her beauty. A different guy may have met her gaze, may even have mustered a smile to her, and taken it from there. But he wasn’t that guy and he panicked looking away and staring intensely at the label of his beer, hoping the embarrassment he felt at getting caught staring wasn’t manifesting itself into too obvious a blush on his cheeks. He suddenly felt 10 degrees too warm and considered making a dash for the door. But instead he found himself, slowly so as to try and be subtle, glancing up at the mirror, back at the point halfway between him and her, where their eye’s had met. To his horror she was still looking at that exact point, and his heart seemed to forget quite how to go about its job, as he saw a shy smile spread across her lips as their eyes met. All the sounds of the bar seemed to become muffled as he looked into those dark eyes. He quickly looked away again though, assuming the smile was one of pity, she probably just felt sorry for the blatantly out of place and awkward boy sat a few seats away. He briefly wondered where the girl’s boyfriend was, a girl that good looking almost certainly had a boyfriend, it would be bordering on an injustice if she was single by anything other than her own choice. He’d probably be a guy not that dissimilar to any one of the group of drunken lads that had moved a little further away from her now that they had their pints. At least, he felt it was fair to say, he probably wouldn’t be a guy like him. Girls like her didn’t go for guys like him.

The barman wandered past him and he asked for another beer, paying the guy quickly, while managing to avoid looking to his right at all. He glanced around to see where his mates were, considering going and joining them just to give him an excuse not to sit there, so hyper aware of this girl sat at most 20 metres away. Both his mates were busy talking to girls so he ruled that one out, he’d rather be the weird but potentially a little mysterious loner than the third wheel. Some small part of him, some minute but optimistic part of him made him glance over at the mirror again, tempting his imagination with the idea that the smile might have been born from something other than pity. That maybe she had seen something of interest in him, a hint of a kindred spirit perhaps, someone else who at that moment in time, clearly didn’t want to be sat alone at a bar. What he saw in the mirror confused him; he didn’t know how to react to the sight of her unmistakable sadness. Her head was down, her eyes locked on a seemingly random point on the bar, and it was clear even at this distance that something had disappointed or upset her. He was contemplating going over to talk to her, for he knew as well as anyone the sensation of loneliness, but his body and thoughts froze simultaneously as she glanced through her fringe at the mirror. They froze because the moment her eyes met his, the sad look vanished, replaced by one that despite his better instincts, he could only describe as hopeful and happy.

His eyes went to his beer again, unable to meet her gaze for the sudden string of images that had filled his mind when she smiled made him feel instantly awkward. In that one moment where there eyes had truly met, her hopeful smile and the glint in her eye had thrown his pessimistic and cynical defences aside and caused him to hope as well, and he’d found himself entertaining images of them as a couple. He knew it was foolish and naïve to even dream those things on the basis of a smile and a brief moment of eye contact, but he had done, and now those images were going round his mind; now he’d imagined them, he couldn’t shake either the images or the way they made him feel.

He felt something coursing through him, an optimism and confidence that were fairly alien to him, so he took a long drink from his beer and then before these new found feelings could desert him he stood up and turned to face the girl.

As he started to walk towards her, his heart rate rising with every step, his mind ran through what he could say. He’d gone too far to back out now, but he realised he hadn’t the faintest clue what to say to a beautiful girl. He ran through lines he’d heard other guys use when chatting up girls, but they all seemed so fake and sleazy that he ruled them out. If he was going to do this, he wasn’t going to pretend to be someone he wasn’t, it just wouldn’t feel right.

Suddenly he realised that he was stood only a couple of feet away from her and she was staring up at him from beneath her thick fringe, those deep, dark eyes managing to take away what little breath he had left. He was out of time and so did something he hoped would serve him well. He simply followed his heart.

“I, I think you’re beautiful and I want to kiss you.” He paused, unable to read her reaction, but decided that now he’d come too far to turn back and so he had to keep going, in the face of her silence, “I can think of some clever lines if you’d prefer,” he felt his heart soar as she smiled, a smile so infectious and awe inspiring that he couldn’t help but feel more confident than he’d felt in years, “But I wanted to say that first.”

He finished speaking and just looked at her, knowing that he meant what he’d said and that for once he’d been impulsive and brave, rather than letting fear cripple him. Slowly she reached out a hand to him, the contact between her fingers and his making the hairs on his arms stand up. She took his hand and gestured to him to sit down on the stool next to hers. She’d still not spoken a word, but their eyes had not left each others, and they were telling him enough to make him fight the terror that was lurking beneath the surface and sit down. He wasn’t sure a girl had ever looked at him like this, looked so deeply into his eyes, that he felt like she was examining some deep and important part of him. And by the way that smile which was still ever so slightly shy lit her face up; he dared to hope that she liked whatever she was seeing.

She looked like she was about to speak when a sudden urge struck him, a most atypical urge for him, but following his heart had worked well so far, and his heart was screaming at him to do something he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing even 5 minutes ago. As she started to open her mouth, he placed a finger over her lips and she stopped, slightly startled but not unhappy, merely curious. He took his finger away and started to lean in, moving slowly so that she had every chance to tell him no or move away, but as he’d been staring at that smile, he’d felt like he wanted, no needed, to kiss those lips, right then. He kept his eyes open until the last moment, checking her eyes for any sign that he’d misjudged the moment, but her eyes continued to sparkle with what he was sure was happiness, so he gently, delicately kissed her lips, feeling like all the sensation in his body had transferred itself to his lips. He was more aware in this moment of the contact between his lips and hers, than he could remember being of anything else in his life. Reluctantly he pulled away, because no matter how incredible it felt to kiss those lips, he was already starting to worry. He worried that he’d misjudged the situation and she was going to be angry. He also worried that they were in different places emotionally. He felt so intensely about this girl already, and though he didn’t believe in love at first sight, he was certain he wanted the chance to fall in love with her, wanted to talk to her, hold her, and learn how to bring that smile back to her lips as often as possible. What if she just thought this was a bit of fun? The thought scared him, but he couldn’t deny that by being impulsive like this, he couldn’t be sure even of his own emotions, let alone hers. He realised he didn’t regret it though; he knew in his heart that he hadn’t acted merely out of lust, but out of some deeper emotion, some combination of hope and desire driven by the fact that when he looked into her eyes, he could already imagine a future with her. He didn’t regret acting on an impulse, because the idea of never seeing this girl again didn’t give him the freedom and confidence he’d heard other guys talk about, it scared and upset him.

All these thoughts filled his head in the seconds as he pulled away and as he waited for her to speak they almost overwhelmed him. But she was still smiling as she opened her eyes again.

“Well, that was, special. I bet you say that to all the girls.” Her voice was ever so slightly sing song and though he reckoned she was teasing him, he became a little defensive, worried she’d misjudged him.

“I promise you I don’t.”

Her laugh erased his defensiveness, it disarmed him completely. “I know.” She grabbed his hand again and gave it a comforting squeeze, “If I’d thought you were just yet another guy, like any other, I wouldn’t have kissed you then.” Those few words soothed his fears and he relaxed in his seat. It seemed like she’d felt it too, that strange, indefinable connection.

Maybe this would work. Maybe his dreams of a future with her weren’t completely naïve.

She was beautiful and he had kissed her. Minor details like what she was called seemed insignificant right then.