8/30/2010

Saturn at equinox

“No, I’m actually a year older than you” she says from across the table during lunchtime while forking any remaining stray fries on her plate. It’s past two p.m. and we have probably lost all track of time altogether but I figure to hell with it, I haven’t really seen this girl in what, say one or two years.
She lays down the fork with one last lone fry still on it, uneaten, and looks back at me with a smile so open, so beautiful, really, that I could easily mistake it for something else entirely: “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

I frown and don’t say anything, wondering whether there’s actually any flirting going on in here, and if so, which one of us is actually doing it.

I make some stupid half-assed remark, supposedly funny but not really and clearly out of place. She rolls back her eyes a bit, disapprovingly. “Either way, it’s not really like we can postpone the decision for so much longer” she continues, “Else I’ll get to that age when the woman has got to start considering freezing her eggs or something.”

“Like… why?” I ask, completely missing the point.

“Because there’s an age limit, see, a safe margin,” she says then drones on about the risks and hardships of human fertilization after a certain age and all that but to tell you the truth it’s kind of lengthy and she makes it sound so serious and grown-up and stuff like that, that I end up zoning out of the conversation altogether and only get to pick a few scattered bits here and there.

“By the way, how old do you think Rick Astley was when he did that Never Gonna Give You Up video anyhow?” I ask her from out of the blue.
She says nothing, bows down her head and starts playing with the golden ring around her finger for a long while, slowly.

Silence reigns absolute for the next full minute or two.

“What…?” she finally says and looks up but not to me but to the pleasant sunny afternoon outside the restaurant: It’s still the last month of Winter, though, and it’s one of those years in which there’s an extra day until the Spring equinox comes along.