He could
see the spark in her eyes. It was difficult to explain the vibes he encountered
with every glint. He thought of them as glowing fireflies. When she looked at
him, when their eyes met, the fly glowed and then she looked away perhaps shy.
But that moment felt as if the firefly disappeared, only that he realized that
it was not the glow or the firefly that diminished, it was his world growing
dark when she looked away.
He knew
this time that she was the one. He should not lose her. He’d been shy earlier
and now he repented every moment of it. But now he could not afford to be
bereaved of the magic moment he would share with her because of his coyness. If
he’d learnt anything from his earlier afflictions, it was this; to be bold. If
you don’t ask her out, someone else would. You would need to take risks. “To
love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is
to risk failure. But risk must be taken because greatest hazard in life is to
risk nothing”. He could feel the words coming from an unknown source in his
mind. He would realize the miracle of life only when he’d start to
live an unexpected life. We have to convert the mundane to extraordinary and
that takes courage. Risks need courage. He remembered Paulo Coelho’s word:
Magic moment. “…that (magic) moment exists – a moment when all the power of the
stars becomes part of us and enables us to perform miracles.”
He mustered
all the courage he had and walked up to her. He feared nothing but being away
from her for being a coward under the pretext of being shy.
He got up
to walk to her desk. She looked at him getting up and smiled. That smile gave
him some confidence. He rolled back his shoulders and held his chin high.
His heart
hammered against his ribs. He took a deep breath and said, “Hi!” She smiled. He
smiled back coyly and continued, “Would you like to go out with me tonight? We
could have dinner together and catch a movie perhaps. If you can’t or have some
other plans, it is okay. I won’t feel bad. I completely understand it’s such a
short notice and I’m not sure if I’d be the best company to spend a Friday
night with…..” After the first two sentences, his manly voice had micrified to
a feeble mumbling. She cut him out and said, “Actually I do have some plans for
tonight, so I can’t really go out with you for a movie.” His face still wore a
smile but he was despondent inside to the core. She continued, “I need to go to
my friend’s pretty late tonight so maybe we can go out for dinner!” his heart
was now racing. He wanted to say a lot of things, wanted to act as if it was
not a big deal, and he was cool, and he wasn’t really excited, but true
emotions can hardly be hidden behind a mask. He was ecstatic and it reflected
on his face and in his voice as he said, “Thanks! See you at 7:30 then, I’ll
pick you up!” She gave him an ethereal smile as he turned back towards his
desk.
It wasn’t
that difficult, he thought. Perhaps it was a magic moment!
