Fantasy

He's in a strange mood because he watched a strange movie, and when he sees her walking down the street he also sees her in his mind, and they meet by accident while walking down this very same street, and she looks how she looks now, because this is the only time he's seen her.

They start out talking about something like. . . . No, they start with a smile. That makes sense, and maybe a quick hi, or a nod. And after a couple steps she says hey and he turns around and she's standing there staring at him, and then she asks him a question—this is always the hardest part—about something. . . . something like. . . . directions! Yeah. And she comes closer to him and they're looking in each others eyes and it turns out that what she's looking for is where he's going, a bar, and they walk to the bar together, and he sees this, while he's walking to the bar.

He orders a drink and sits at a dark booth near the back and he can still see her face and he sees her order a drink too and she comes and sits beside him. Her friend isn't here yet, and so they talk for a while but her friend never shows and then he/they are stumbling back to his place, and it's late, and her face is getting blurrier and blurrier until he/they is/are home, where they sit on the red couch in the dim light and have another drink. They don't talk during this drink, her breasts are what he's seeing most, and it doesn't take long but it's good and then he's done, on his back, fist clenched tight with fluid still warm. He falls asleep but wakes after only an hour and he sees her again, her face hidden by the darkness, only the obvious characteristics remaining now, the hair and the general shape of her face and of course her breasts. She looks worried because, well, she thinks she might be pregnant.

And it turns out she is so they get married, right away, and it's exciting because they're so young and could've never expected this, this coming together from nothing and now soon there will be life. They're scared too, of course, because they're so young and could've never expected this, this coming together from nothing and now soon there will be life.

And it happens, like they expected and they raise the child well and they stay together until she's old enough and then they break apart, violently, when she's gone to college and there's nothing to hold them together anymore. And he thinks back on how he bumped into her when she was looking for the same place he was going to and they had those drinks. He thinks about the girl he was seeing then, a different girl with a different future they would've had together that never happened because he was drunk and though he now loves his daughter immensely he can't help but wonder. He thinks about how he thought about this other girl many times over the years, wondering where she was, and one day hearing she too was married and she too was pregnant. It was hard to think of her as a mother but he somehow knew she'd be good at it, and he could imagine her staring at her own baby with her large soft eyes, so brown, and sometimes it made his chest hurt thinking about it and sometimes he cried.

He imagines what it would be like to go to her now, the other girl, and to apologize and take her back because she'd have him back and they'd move in together and get married like they should've so many years ago, and their kids would be best friends, sisters, and even his ex-wife would meet someone, her face so blurry now, and even she'd be happy like he couldn't make her because it wasn't meant to be, was an accident that he watched that strange movie and was in that strange mood and saw her walking down that street so long ago.