for my grandchildren

what can a woman do when she meets a man who promises to be many things she only dare wish for? of course, there’s a catch. he’s a traveller and he’s only passing through her life. blink, gone. in another month’s time, she will not remember how the uneven lines cut across his palms and what they said about him. The only sure thing that they told her was that his future would be lived on the other side of the world.

so, what she does is she refuses to look him in the eye even a moment longer than what politeness demands, scared that the words she’s trying to swallow back would be said through her eyes. she says ‘goodnight’ and turns her face away although she wants to hold him back and kiss that bright smile off his beautiful mouth. because he’s not real. At least, soon, he’d cease to be real. tomorrow, she must drop him off at the bus-stop and say good-bye with a grin and a hug.

…actually bad timing is not my only excuse. i also happen to be a sucker for love stories that never go beyond ‘once upon a time’. unrequited love is how my good and brutal friend more aptly describes my little passions. i like to insist i am like Lancelot of the Round Table fame – the courtly lover…uhm, that’s not completely true either. the truest truth is that i am a coward who refuses to take a chance.

i give my heart a little to each wonderful man i meet. but i never love enough to let it be known. i am beginning to regret it. i want to be a woman who has tales of grand passions to tell her grandchildren, or at least a past that has enough hot stuff to make the copies of her autobiography fly off the bookshelves. i would definitely invest half of that money for my grandchildren. the other half would buy me some good whiskey and the affection of some hunky young man to warm my rickety bones in my old age.

the heart lub-dubs. in other words, the clock ticks.