As I was out taking one last walk through the neighborhood of Mission Hill, Boston—it suddenly dawned on me, as I looked around on that July’s mid-afternoon that I was a rare one out.  Even the playground at this hour, that was usually bustling and teeming with the robust vigor of untamed youth, was now vacant.  Such was the relentlessness of the heat that day, rising through the white haze of the afternoon.  So, after a very short stroll I decided to go into the nearby library that I had always visited, now seeking an escape.  

Here inside, thronged about—was where there were so many of the people that had not been outdoors.  For many of them, I’m sure, just as I: lived in apartments that weren’t constructed to house the comfort of central air, or, even the convenience of individual cooling units.  So by perforce, if we were to be just the least bit comforted, it would be by fans.  A great number of the people were dispersed among the computers; while others sat at tables pretending to be reading; and the more honest ones were the ones just lounging casually about at the magazines and the newspapers sections, scanning the titles and thumbing through the pages, or just walking quietly throughout, not pretending at all to be doing anything, but just that.  But all sharing one commonality: being free from the bondage that lurked outside the doors, the misery of the heat.  I myself, began walking around browsing casually here and there, without commitment, at the well-preserved volumes of the ancient books of philosophy, the modern books of literature, the art books, for my mind was certainly not into reading, or, really into thinking too intensely, when I saw Christine, the new librarian who had only just begun working there a few months past.  She was sitting alone in the office that stood rather incognito off to the side, well away from the main front desk where the other librarians were.  

I didn’t know why, but without much thought I went over to her.  No, something carried me to her.  There, we began, for the first time, to speak truly intimately.  Although on many other occasions we had chatted pleasantly together, rather in passing it seemed, when compared to now, we only spoke casually of things not really worth mentioning.  

After our formal greeting of one another, and, an exchange of pleasantries: Christine had said—to my surprise that she had even taken notice—that she hadn’t seen me for some time.  I began to fill her in on the details of my absence and why I hadn’t been around: because I had been visiting back home for a while, at the Quad Cities, interviewing, and that I was leaving on the following day to go back.  She had asked if I would ever be coming back this way again, to New England, and when.  I had then hesitated, ponderingly, as to who could ever say with certainty, even about the things we considered to be at any given moment in time, most certain. . . . But in my hesitation of avoiding answering directly and timely, by not wanting to move into a verbose and awkward conversation, that would have caused her to cast onto me, perhaps, a negative impression, had I told her with honest “certainty” of my present feelings towards Boston at the time; an honesty that would have dulled the moment for us—she took it up, and answered by saying:

“Not for awhile, I suppose. . . ?” she had said, with a gentle smile; that bright Midwesterner’s, St. Louis smile, that was always so fresh and warm and acquiescing that she wore so well.  

“Not for awhile,” I rejoined, rather neutrally, regretting at that moment, and owing to other sentiments, that I was wholly unable to return an equally affable smile. 

Then Christine began telling me—again to my surprise—of her upcoming marriage, and that she was going away to the Marshall Islands for the honeymoon afterwards, which to this she seemed more elated than about the actual matrimony itself.  Then she spoke randomly and oh so comfortably about this and that.  She told me that she was now generally exhausted and cranky by week’s end and really ready for the time to come, so that the planning and the anticipation should be over, and all could just be normal once again.  My thought being then, was there ever normal afterwards?  She also told me that she was an introvert and that working with the public was draining on her and that my life—that of an artist, seemed filled with so much freedom; freedom to be introverted, and enabling me to recharge at will.  She had once before talked about wanting to write.  She even said now, that before she knew that I was an artist, she knew that we shared the bonds of being introverts.  Hearing Christine say this, I smiled at her.  Her eyes blushed, as they looked up at me rather pleadingly from where she sat.  All the while that Christine and I had spoken, I must say—I was held by her spectacular blue eyes, that were so focused, it seemed, so concentrated on something beyond, and not in measurable distance, but rather in time, and much more important, provocative and more personal and more intimate than what her words now relayed.  

On that afternoon, Christine held me in her pleading gaze as no woman had ever.  Briefly, time seemed to have stood still.  I could not release myself—perhaps in her control, I have considered over all the intervening years since, was where I wanted to be kept.  Not once did she seem to blink; she gave all of her attention to me, and somehow then, for a substantial time following, it played on me like a magic spell.  Yes!—I was weakened; helpless: I was completely and thoroughly defenseless; all my emotions were alive and open to her—this committed woman of “certainty”.  Part of me had felt ashamed—a sort of guilt-shame, owing to being young and inexperienced in the intricacies of feelings and emotions.  I supposed.  But for what?—for feeling; just because she was spoken for?  No boundary beyond sensation had been trespassed.  And I had always wondered on many instances afterwards, how did she truly feel about it all, when she was the one holding me captive in her blue gaze that uttered so much more?  And I had stared back at her that sultry afternoon with full-intent, towards what end?  I had not the slightest inkling of motive, have never truly known; only that it felt good and right at the same time.  

Reluctantly coming somewhat to, and then shaking myself somewhat free, I found her hand extended.  I took hold of her hand and squeezed it ever so gently.  She pressed lightly back, her eyes holding me in their gaze all the while, even as she stood up.  Finally, I gave her sincere, best wishes for the life she had planned ahead, that life of “certainty” that who could ever say, truly, after all, was really so very, certain.  During that occurrence, I now recall, that I had sensed a very important part of me being left there with Christine in that time, and in that particular place, among all those ancient volumes, perhaps writing therein through the ethers of time and space, a tale even held secrets from us.  I also felt a part of her beyond our human-understanding, entering inside of me just then, to be forever housed in the deeper planes of thoughts in my mind.  What did it all mean?  Were we destined to be together, somewhere in the future, in a far away place, another world perhaps, with a thorough amnesia of this time and setting, in the unseen: beyond and separate, from that world where we then stood, and outside of the realms of that Now?  

There was no more than a hint of suggestion of some silent assertion then exposed in the intonations of her words, the faint subtleties of her bodily gestures, the lingering of her hand in mine, as she had pressed it.  She spoke as calmly and as naturally as ever on that afternoon.  I supposed then, that she had to, for guilt’s complex sake.  But her eyes had communicated a myriad of other thoughts, on so many other levels.  And I wondered, as perhaps Christine did too, why did one’s deepest, most heartfelt sentiments, always reared up at the most inopportune times in our lives?  It was a fleeting thought, charming, coyly coaxing—yet free of any alloy of cajolery, that we dared not permit to linger, I’m sure.  But in those few precious moments, and in that setting so innocent, through our eyes that glimpsed only possibilities, each in the others’, we had shared something most spectacular, in that golden silence, that would yield lifetimes of memories, along with a host of speculations of what-ifs, of that road not traveled.