THE MEETING
(a piece of flash fiction)
The tall, lean man stumbled into the room. It was too dark to see much of anything. His squinting pushed his eyebrows down into the frames of his coke bottle eyeglasses. An eyelash got caught in the frame. The pain was brief, yet unwelcome, as he tried to get his bearings. As his eyes watered, the room grew darker, unnaturally dark.
The voice came from all directions. It was high-pitched, inexplicable, certainly not human. Disoriented, he tried to pinpoint the origin but was unsuccessful.
“There, over there, look. Hurry, or you will miss her. I can’t tell you how important this is, please listen to me.”
“It is too dark to see. What is this? Who are you? How did I get here? What do you want with me?”
He started to feel dizzy as he sensed it, the draw, the implied come-hither look from a woman he could only sense. His rational mind fighting a losing battle with his caveman brain, he steeled himself, trying to turn his fear into anger.
He struck a boxer’s stance, left foot forward, perfectly balanced with clenched fists as he imagined what sort of creature might be in the room with him. Suddenly a gentle tap on his shoulder and two handmaidens, illuminated in dull beige light, appeared before him. One pointed to the other and then dissolved into nothingness.
The remaining entity looked deep into the man’s eyes. She is beautiful. Those are the most piercing eyes I have ever experienced. As his fear diminished, he knew that his little part of the world would never be the same.
He tried to remain calm, enraptured by the floating apparition. She casually pointed to her left and then disappeared into oblivion.
The man suddenly found himself in a room full of unfamiliar people. Those to his left were frozen; the people to his right were moving in exaggerated slow motion. The music, so loud, was suspended on a single power chord (maybe one of those Lillith Faire chords?). With a short wave of his hand, the man was able to silence the music. It was then that he saw her.
One moment in time, unlike all the others, novel and unexpected. He didn’t recognize her, but he knew she was responsible for this. She was the puppeteer, the power broker, the instigator.
Waves of energy were radiating off her, seeming to intensify as they traveled across the room. Bliss, pure bliss. What is this? Who is she? He grew more intoxicated as he realized she was not frozen; she was moving toward him. She walked in a reckless, destructive manner; her approach calculated and mesmerizing.
“Your life as you knew it is over,” a detached voice said as the woman drew closer. “I must tell you to listen to her, the stakes are very high. Of course, you can do what you want, but I strongly suggest you pay attention.”
The man, confused and fearful, sensed he was in trouble. His intuition (some would say a spirit guide) told him to ignore the bizarre voice and run.
“She is going to be more of a problem than a solution. You don’t need this. The devil wouldn’t manifest as a demon; it would look like her.”
The battle of words and wits continued. “Grab her right now. Kiss her and tell her how long you have been waiting for her.”
“No, you idiot, don’t do that. What the hell is wrong with you?” “She is going to be gone soon; you are probably never going to see her again. Ask her if you can kiss her.”
“Can’t you see what is going on here? You must run.”
Just as the woman reached him, she turned her cheek and continued on her journey. He could feel her presence as she walked across the room and out the door. He found himself breathing heavily as the people in the room came back to life. No one bothered to ask him if he was OK, if he was in need of assistance. After a few minutes, his breathing returned to normal, and he started to collect himself.
You are reading a dreadful tale, one cautionary in nature. A story where the actors all die before the climax, and no one can figure out the point. Consider every ex machina ever conceived, synthesize them, and then hit print. That is what the tall, lean man with the coke bottle eyeglasses was left with.
The man spent years trying to rationalize an irrational encounter. He finally convinced himself that he met the face of creation, an otherworldly creature traveling through space and time. He kept his tale to himself, not wanting to bother humanity with his anxieties. He simply deemed himself unlucky to be at the same place and time as her. He knew the odds of such an encounter were astronomical, but he refused to give it any profound meaning. He stopped asking why a long time ago; his only issue was that he couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
