Familiar Stranger

I met him tonight. I met his eyes in the darkness of the street as he locked up the bar. I knew it was him right away.


00h10 

Seconds before, the jingling keys in his hands turning the lock seemed to have prepared me for him. They told me in their light metal-ringing song that this is the one you had heard about.
Just the night before, the the old woman told me about him. It felt like come straight out of a fairytale story book. She told me his heartbreaking story.

Her, white as the Polish snow of her homeland. Him, black as the history of the country that forced his parents flee to France. Her, a tall, majestic dancer studying in Paris. Him, a bar tender trying to make ends meet. They meet at the bar and instantly fell in love. Every night, she would wait anxiously for midnight so that she could spend the first minutes and hours of her day with him. All he could think of was her. They could easily see themselves together forever. But tradition and family stands in their way. The old-fashioned ways of her homeland would never accept the new man in her life, much less the children that would come from their marriage. She flies back to Poland, occasionally coming back to visit him, but it's never long enough.  She has to make a decision: family or love? 


I smiled at him as I walked by. I thought of what Madame had told me the night before. What a crazy modern Romeo and Juliet story. He walked quickly passed me, and I wondered how he was feeling. Does he ever worry that he might never be with her? Is he happy? He hop-skipped twice as he walked off the sidewalk to cross the street. I guess that was my answer. If anything, tonight, he is in a good mood. Tonight, he is just any other bar tender trying to survive in the city. Tonight, he is just another guy walking down the same street as me.