He was just walking with his friends on one of their very few off days. The 2 oldest ones, which excluded him, had decided to take it easy for once, and the others had readily agreed. They had been strolling around the park, sometimes joking around and reminiscing about the past years. As the others busily chatted up a storm, he mentally blanked them out and started to look at his surroundings. As they walked past an old, yet still youthful with all its foliage, tree, a blue clad figure looking down at something propped up in her lap. Attracted by the peacefulness of the whole picture, he forgot about his friends, who obviously forgot that he was there, and walked toward the creature sitting under the tree, oblivious to the whole world around it. “Do you mind if I sit here?” he said with his raspy voice.
In her fantasy world, she heard a man saying, “Do you mind if I sit here?” When the question was repeated, she was hurtled back to reality. She turned her head toward the voice and brushed her long black hair from her view. She was greeted with a fuzzy image. “I don’t mind.”
He gracefully sat down while staring at her face. It wasn’t exactly what Hollywood would consider beautiful. But he saw kindness and understanding, and to him, it was what made her beautiful. He saw her reach for something on her chest and put it on. Her silver rimmed glasses made her more sophisticated and probably much older than she truly was. “What are you reading?”
“Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamera Pierce. You probably don’t know it.”
“Do you mind if I could have a look at it?”
She reached beside her and gave him another book, the exact same replica of the one that laid on her lap. With a little smile, “Here you go. You can have it.”
“That’s okay, I can get my own.”
“No, really. I can get these at the library book sales easily.”
“Well thanks. What’s it about?”
She turned and faced him, with an animated spark in her eyes. “It’s this set of identical twins of a boy and a girl. The boy wants to be a sorcerer and the girl wants to be a knight. That isn’t possible because only boys could be knights. Girls had to go to a convent and learn how to be a lady. This means it is the place to learn how to flirt,” she said as she batted her eyes at him. He gave her a smile and she continued, “and reel in the a rich husband with title of a earl or duke. So when they split off their separate ways, the girl went as a boy and her brother went into sorcery.”
“So what happens next?” he said, hoping to hear her sweet voice again.
“Read it and find out.” The two of them just sat there quietly reading and enjoyed each others quiet companionship.