The few departing sun rays still penetrated into each piece of my skin, making all efforts to keep me happy throughout the night. I waited. Mom should’ve been here by now. The loud ecstatic screams and the reflexive shouts of children had lowered. I could tell that everyone had left the park. It didn’t matter if mom was a little late. My homework was complete and the novel I was reading was good enough to keep me glued. When even the chirping of the birds had stopped and the sun had already said goodbye, I sat on the bench taking in the aroma of the rose flowers that grew beside it. The sweet and soft scent mixed with a little petrichor. Suddenly, I heard a shuffle of feet and some sharp smell of perfume intervened into the scene. It was a guy. I hid my book. I didn’t want him to see what I was reading. I wondered if he felt something weird about my wearing dark glasses at that time. I hoped not.
As the silence grew into the surroundings, the one between us was broken.
‘Waiting for someone’, he asked.
‘Yeah’, I replied nervously.
Then that tremendous storm of thunderous emotions swirled in my heart which I was trying to hold back when he asked my name.
‘Flora’
Aren’t you flora from the abyss street?
Yeah, I am. Do you know me?
Of course. Who hasn’t heard about the charity program you ran at school and………. By the way I am Trevor.
I giggled under my breath. Did that Trevor know the tremors he was causing in my heart? But the next moment I realized he knew about me. What if he knew…….
The brakes of my mum’s cars screeched as it came to a halt. I hid my books. I didn’t want him to see them. His mom had come too as I heard her agreeing to the description of the traffic jam that caused the delay. I went home, silent all the way. I tried to concentrate on what we were going to do as the next community service act but somehow his voice had taken over my mind. It played on replay all the time. …………I am Trevor…………. It was like a magnet trying to pull all my thoughts towards it and it succeeded. Mom told me that the guy next to me was Trevor and he was really nice. It’s good for moms to think that you’ve not had a word with some ‘stranger’.
The night gave way to another beautiful morning. And as my schedule followed, I went to the park with my books. A little while later, that same smell that had built its space in the corner of my head yesterday came. So, it was Trevor.
I shifted my weight uncomfortably from one hip to another as he sat next to me. And I hid my books. In the conversations that followed, he revealed that he was a sportsman, an excellent cricket player. With the passing of each day, the space between us on the bench seemed to get lesser and lesser. Now my heart waited for that feeling, my ears for his raspy voice. My nasal passage wouldn’t be cleared until I smelt his perfume. Now that I had a great crush on him, I couldn’t stop babbling to him and stammering at places I became too nervous. Whenever he sat close to me, I felt that mysterious energy messing around with me.
I have never really thought anyone would love ME except the homeless children that I sometimes gave a candy or two. I have never felt what it is that my friends talk about, that feeling of love at first sight. I have had swirly moments but never that. How I wished I could fall in love, MUTUALLY. I wished someone loved me with all their heart for who I was.
Depressing thoughts just needed a little of his voice to get scared and flee. Just another day in the park, we were joking about stuff when he blurted in excitement, ‘do you know what?’
‘No, what?’
Our team won the cricket tournament and we probably will get selected for the SCTVI.
‘Oh! I always believed in you. I knew you would. By the way, what does that mean, that SCTVI?’ I chirped in.
‘Haven’t you heard about it?’ he asked. ‘It is the STATE CRICKET TOURNAMENT FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED.’
I felt somewhere deep inside that a light had shone. My mom didn’t tell me he was blind. I put my hand on his lap and said, ‘and you know what. I am not only the President of community service club but an active member of the LETS READ IN BRAILLE GROUP. I too am visually impaired.
I took of my dark glasses. There was no need to hide my wandering eyes. I didn’t hide my braille books. We were the same. Love needs no insecurities.
We certainly had fallen in true love- love at no sight.