Maybe at first sight

Maybe once in a long while, someone makes an entrance in an unlikely, ordinary setting that makes you straighten up, widen your eyes and soften your face. It’s a distant familiar feeling that used to signal the start of something good.

Maybe you notice them from way across the room because they seem to light up the place just for you. Actually you couldn’t care less if the rest of the room was pitch black, as long as you have the follow spot of your gaze over and on them every which way they go. You catch yourself gawking as they move, but you don’t want to lose sight of them.

Maybe they’ve a purposeful stride, looking past you as they get to where they need to be, sizing things up, then pausing in place with a pout of concentration. Those lips. Then they turn to talk to someone, and you hear just a bit of their voice, and it is already everything you imagine would match everything you have seen of them.

Maybe all you need is just a second of an soundbite. Because once your brain has banked even an utterance, it’ll go to work replicating it across every single imagined word and phrase that will leave their lips.

Maybe by now they’ve moved to another corner of the room and you can’t hear them anymore. God forbid they catch your surreptitious surveillance, and suddenly realise you’re trying to read their lips.

Maybe there could be nothing better or worse than them reflecting everything back at you with a quick smile that pierces right through you.