Dear Lord of Darkness,
It was my first date today. Not one of our play dates where
you dressed like a clown and I like an elite British woman. It was a real
people’s date. Yes, I spent 3 hours selecting my outfit and still felt a little
under-dressed for the occasion. I put on some make-up and tied my hair in a
neat ponytail. I even tried on heels, but then settled for wedges. I even
checked if my breath smelled fine and asked Mom for her perfume. It was new and exciting. Like it was my
chance to break out of my years and be someone else. Someone I might be, sometime
in the future.
So, I waited for an entire hour on my shut door, waiting for
the doorbell to ring. And then I heard the sound. The sound that woke me up from
my childhood long slumber. I waited for a minute before opening the door, to
pretend I’m not that anxious. And then suddenly felt weird, for I've never
manipulated the display of my feelings. Maybe I had grown up already.
In that minute, I pictured my date and me, dancing to a slow ballroom waltz, a
clown and a duchess. We confessed our love to our families, who disagreed. And we held hands and ran up the cliff. And then we decided to jump off it, making our
love eternal, and then I saw you sitting on the cliff, and suddenly didn’t want to die any more. But my date had jumped already and so, I jumped anyway. I suddenly
woke up from the trance and realized I must open the door, or else my date
would think I’m disinterested. So anyway, I straightened my hair, dishevelled from
all the running and opened the door.
There he was, dressed in a black blazer and a cute bow tie.
I thought he looked funny, dressed up all fancy. But then I realized I looked just
as ridiculous. He must have spent hours to look like that too. We smiled at
each other and went on. Date was nothing the way I’d pictured it. I did not
have the time of my life, as promised by my enthusiastic classmate. In fact,
time kept changing pace. It went too soon when we danced and ate at my favourite
restaurant. The one, you and I had discovered. But all our ways of spending the
date had been spent, it just stopped moving.
My head began to hurt and I wanted to open my hair, he kept tugging on
his bow tie. The dress was too short and my legs started getting numb with
cold. His perfume started getting mixed with a flavour of fresh sweat. By the
end we ran out of things to say, and sat quietly staring at the sky. He kept his
hand on mine, and even though I tried, our fingers didn't entwine. We finally
bid each other goodbye and shook hands. No, we didn’t kiss like I had thought.
He was too shy and I was too uncomfortable. But we did fix a second date.
Because, next time we’ll have this date to talk about.
Princess of the Winter Snow
