One Day

She was standing in the garage entrance, her angled finger gently tapping on the wooden frame. He turned round to see a tall woman with long, curly hair wearing a blue cotton hoodie and ripped jeans. She had baby blue eyes, wide open, giving her a sense of attentiveness that she coupled with an amiably smiling face looking straight at him. She was beautiful.

“Hey,” she said waving her right hand in a swift motion, and they were off.

She was walking beside him, telling him about her job. The pathway was covered in leaves illuminated by the bare trees, glowing like a bright and saturated spectacle of a leaving day in the sky. He loved listening to her soft and friendly voice, it was like a harmonizing song filled with joy. He took her hand. She looked at him, leaning her head before producing a subtle but comforting smile. He firmed his grip and she did the same.

“I want this day to never end,” he said.

She laughed and told him that it didn’t have to. She took the lead and walked them off the path into a part of the forest that hasn’t yet succumbed to chillier weather. Here, the light struggled to get past the dense layer of stubborn leaves refusing to fall. The result was a myriad of tiny cones of light glaring through the green ceiling of trees. The blanket was laid out on a clear patch of dry dirt, occluded by one of the bigger trees. They sat down and she started taking out food and water from the small basket at the center of their ground table. She’d brought sandwiches, neatly packed inside thin blue paper bags. The cheese-tomato combination topped by his favorite dressing looked delicious.

How’d she known that? he thought. She unwrapped the first and handed it to him, then took one herself. Gentle gusts of wind lifted the fuzzy edges of the old blanket while the only audible noise was the rustling of the woods. Occasionally, some yellow-orange leaves dropped from the old oak tree behind them, decorating the ground in the same colorful pattern they’d experienced earlier. It all added up to a feeling of a perfect day in the fall, accompanied by the most stunning girl he had ever met in his lonely and uneventful life.

She asked him about the car he had managed to repair earlier last Monday. Happy that she had mentioned that, he produced to smile. He sat upright, preparing the story in his mind. He felt his heart pumping in anticipation. The wind was losing impact, the leaves stopped falling and the world faded around them.

“See, I’m the worst handyman in recorded history. But there was this hum inside my car, every time I turned on the left indicator but only when I’m driving on dry asphalt at 32 km/h. It drove me crazy so I started looking into it,” he spilled. He told her about the drops of water he’d found, the black socks he had once bought online, and how he had used them to find out where the hum was coming from and how he’d finally found the cause and fixed it. He talked for half an hour before he came to again and noticed the world around him once more. The whole time, she had looked attentive, a perpetual interest for his stories was radiating from her face and posture, she was happy to listen to his rants about his achievement. He felt more alive than ever before, this day had turned out perfect in every way.

The sun was already setting when they walked up the hill. On the top, the trees gave way to the astonishing sight of the valley below. The sky in the distance had already turned into an increasing demonstration of atmospheric scattering, ending beneath the horizon where the yellow ball of life was sending out the last light of the day. The densely forested plane below them was mixed with orange of many shades. They sat down on a small bench near the treeline that was standing tall behind them. It was carved into a fallen tree that had been preserved with an oil plating, giving it a reflective glare of nature’s show every night of the year.

She told him this was the first sunset she’d seen through her own eyes.

“Mine, too. I’ve always wanted to visit a place like this, it’s so calm and peaceful. Thank you for taking me here,” he told her admiringly. He had never felt this grateful before.

They watched the sun disappear while the sky turned black and the first stars began to twinkle. There weren’t any clouds and the next city was miles away. The clear and fresh air allowed the night to produce a bright and spectacular view of the life-giving gas giants spread throughout eternity. The first points of Libra started to appear, its outline easily completed by the pattern-loving human mind.

It was getting colder, the temperature falling victim to the full moon that set an aspiration for the billions of stars in the sky. She slid closer, extending her arm around him and gently pulled until their heads fell together. They stared into the vastness of space beyond the horizon. He felt her warmth spreading to him, making his heart glow from the inside while his brain unleashed a flood of happiness and an unbreakable feeling of comfort and safety in her embrace.

They started talking about the stars, not letting go of each other, and she asked him about the meaning of life.

“Did you know that we might have been born in just the right time and place? The universe is pushing itself apart, creating ever-increasing gaps between the galaxies. At some point in the far, far future, the sky at night will have turned black with no chance of recovery.” He started talking about implications of growth, how the universe was exhausting itself. He showed her the galaxy that would one day collide with the milky way, the famous star that was due to end its life and the cluster shaped like a heart. She tightened her hold on him, fascinated with him, and chipping in wisdom and stories of her own.

A meteor shot through the sky, ignited by the clash of high speed and dense air that created the famous shed of glowing rock in its trail. She startled and pointed her finger at the shooting star, prompting him to make a wish and then did the same. They looked at each other, both losing themselves to the other’s twinkling eyes, and smiled. When the meteor lost the last of its existence, they kissed.

They were back in the garage and she said, “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Ye— sure…, ehm, first door left then right.” He shook his head as his thoughts jammed. “No,” he spat, “that door.. then straight and right.”

Her smile faltered a fraction but she kept her friendly posture. “Thank you kindly,” she said and came in.