sunlight

It was a simple shaft of sunlight in the busy street, and a man standing in it, eyes closed, motionless.

More precious than gold on a mid-January afternoon, a long sliver of sunshine pierced the skyline and reached all the way to the floor, penetrating the underbrush of the urban canopy and painted the footpath with a big, lighted arrow that seemed to beckon "this way". James was at it's apex, unmindful of the traffic swirling and eddying around him on its way to lunch.

James had left his office to nip out to the sandwich shop on the corner and bring his lunch back to his desk. He couldn't face sitting in the shop alone, and the scrutiny of the canteen clique gave him reason to believe they were forming opinions about his sexual orientation. He had no qualms about letting them at it, had no care to put asunder their ill-conceived theories about who he spent his time with and how, but today he simply didn't want to be looked at, analyzed, and misunderstood.

He had closed the door and turned the corner, walking dead centre into this mighty sliver of sunshine, and was now standing arrested in his tracks. He had stopped initially in surprise by the odd sensation of radiant warmth filling his jacket, which was a polar opposite to the usual Arctic wind trying to rip his jacket from him. It gave him incentive to pause before he knew what he was doing. It was only when he had involuntarily halted did he realise he couldn't see ahead of him. He blinked and squinted into the sunshine, tried to see a way forward, but immediately surrendered the will to even try to see through it.

He was standing in the busy footpath with his eyes closed, head tilted toward the light, feeling like he was in his own private enclosure that no one could penetrate, not caring that he could have taken one step to the right or left and carried on with his lunch hour. He let the sunshine soak into him. He listened to the sound of conversations travel past him, the roar of traffic pulsing through the nearest junction, the "blip blip blip" of the pedestrian signal calling out to the visually impaired, and smelling the occasional whiff of cologne, perfume, and cigarette smoke drift past him. He stood for so long, he began to sense that the sliver of sun was shifting.

Had one been sitting across the road at a table outside the nearest cafe one would have seen two people, a man and a woman, heads tilted toward the sun, standing still and silent like they were trapped in an alien beam in a sci-fi movie. One would have noticed that the woman was backing up slowly in an effort to remain in the sunlight as the Earth turned and it oozed it's way down the footpath. Bemused, one would have observed the stationary man in her path behind her. One would have ordered another coffee, usually a no-no, lit another cigarette, snuggled down into one's coat and keenly awaited contact.

James felt her back into him in slow motion. Her head and back pressed against his chest. She narrowly missed treading on his foot. It happened so slowly that neither were thrown off balance. She slowly turned to face him. He gently reached out and grasped her by the shoulders to steady her.

One would have sat up over one's now cold coffee full of glee at the impromptu waltz unfolding across the road.

He opened his eyes to see what he was holding. The dazzling light permitted him a glimpse of a lovely, pale face turned up toward him wearing an expression of apology. He stood looking down at this over-exposed image of an angelic face coming through waves of light passing through his eyes and he felt no incentive to let go of her shoulders. He watched as her expression of apology turned slowly to a smile of recognition, of like recognising like. He felt the corners of his mouth turn up. He realised in that moment he couldn't remember the last time he smiled.

In one's excitement, one would have accidentally kicked the table leg and jostled one's coffee cup, spilling its cold contents into the saucer, and would have stubbed out one's forgotten cigarette before leaping up and heading back to work, beaming with the knowledge that one had just witnessed two random strangers fall in love.