February 3, 2009

• The pleasure is all mine

  “Liz, I’d like to introduce you to my friend Chan.”
  Liz stepped up and put her hand out, which Chan met gently with his own. “Hello, Chan,” Liz said in a social manner as their hands shook.
  “Hi . . . Liz?” Chan said, turning his head slightly as he checked that he had the name right.
  “Yes,” Liz nodded.
  “Wow,” he said with his eyes gleaming, “I did not expect to see you here.”
  “I beg your pardon?” Liz questioned as a quizzical look shot across her face.
  “Yes, so this is Chan,” Travis concluded the introduction, ”I’m a’ go get a drink.” A moment later, Travis had disappeared into the swarming crowd of conversations going on around them.
  “Wait, Travis!”
  “Don’t worry about him,” Chan said, his eyes still wide and fixed on Liz. “He can find the drinks fine. I’ve known him for years.”
  “Of course,” Liz conceded.
  “So. . .wow,” Chan emphasized, “This is TOTALLY blowing my mind right now,” he continued, throwing out his arms to gesticulate his surprise.
  “Have I met you before?” Liz questioned, tilting her head.
  “No, of course not.  If I knew you I might expect you to be here. That’s what is so shocking about this. I just, I just—I just had no idea you’d be here,” Chan said, shaking his head in unbelief.
  “Well, here I am,” said Liz, still not knowing what to say.
  “Yeah. And just think!  All the other people you’ve spoken to, the days you’ve woken up to, the places you’ve been,” Chan said, putting his head by hers and motioning with his hand as though they were looking at the idea together, “Thousands and thousands of days, during which millions of reasons occurred to you to do this thing or to do that thing, and the decision you ended up making in any circumstance always being a narrow one amidst the thousands of options you had.  That eventually all of that should lead you here—I did not see that coming, let me tell you.”
  Liz stood speechless.  She thought about turning her head to look around for Travis amidst the party, but she knew she wouldn’t find him.  
  “So,” Chan continued, a tremendous grin spread across his face, “What do you say?  Now that it’s finally happened and all.  We’ve spent our entire lives ’til now preparing and anticipating, not even knowing if it would ever happen, but now it’s here.  So—what do you say?”
  Liz scrunched her eyebrows as she thought about his words.  Finally, it all started to make sense.  She replayed everything from start to finish, putting all his words and actions together.  It was such an obvious truth, how could she have not seen it earlier?  Thus, after a few moments of thought she slowly turned to him and asked with a highly suspecting look on her face, “Are you drunk?”

  • 8:39 pm
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