"Metropolitan Mirage"
by
William H. Chang

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It was a sunny afternoon when you sat down in that chair, no more than twenty feet away from my own seat, tucked in the shadow of a skyscraper. The day was hot as hell, enough to make the devil want a sip of something cool. I recall that you were wearing shorts that went no lower than mid-thigh, and a low-cut tank-top that exposed the round beginnings of your breasts (not that I was looking at them in particular mind you). You put your feet up on the chair, stretching out those long, slender legs, kicking off the cheap plastic flip-flops. Even from where I sat I could hear them clatter on the floor. I stared at your feet for a moment as you flexed your toes, imagining the tiny cracks and pops emitting from each little joint. In the blinding light of the sun I could have sworn your toenails were painted the color of blood.

Now, you musn't think that I was spying on you. That isn't proper civil behavior, and in many countries (especially this one) it's considered rude to even look at someone for an extended period of time. What I was doing was simply admiring you, observing you as part of a larger picture - the grand view of the world, you might say. It's no different than birdwatching, or examining a painting in a museum. A work of art.

I sat there in my chair, a newspaper laid out on the table before me. My hands were wrapped around a large plastic cup filled with iced tea. I remember the ice had melted, causing the tea to taste watery and bland. The condensation soaked my hands, and I constantly had to rub them on the thighs of my pants to dry them. At the time I wondered if I was just getting nervous, but what reason would I have for that?

You were looking at the view downstairs, only one story below. Kids playing in the freshly watered grass, businessmen heading off to Starbucks for an after-lunch dessert, scantily clad teenagers off to the movies in a hurry so they could make-out in the darkness. It was a typical summer's day, yet you seemed to watch the scene below us with such a vivid interest, like a tourist's first glimpse of a foreign country complete with the alien customs. Maybe it was the way that your head was turned, the way your eyes were ever so slightly exposed from behind the safety of your sunglasses, but I couldn't help but look. When I think about it now, I probably looked silly, with my mouth hanging slightly open like a little boy who's just discovered where babies come from. I thought, at that moment, that you were gorgeous.

And then you shifted your gaze. Even though your eyes retreated behind those dark gray lenses once again, I could feel them on me; caressing, searching. I shifted my own gaze downwards, to my open newspaper, pretending to read an article about the government's latest folly. I wanted to look up, to see your face again, but my neck had turned to solid stone, and my eyes were glued to the meaningless words. Minutes passed. I don't remember how many. Two might have gone by, or two hundred. Who can say? The only thing now that I remember is that by the time I was able to lift my head up you were gone. Just like that.

I've come back to this place every day for the past week, yet you're never here. I can still trace the outline of your face with my mind, can still recall the soft pink of your slightly parted lips, can still see the soft glow of your pale skin in the afternoon sunlight.

Sometimes I think I was in love with you, for that very brief moment. Other times I wonder if you were just a figment of my imagination, a metropolitan mirage brought on by the uncanny Bay Area heat. Either way, I'm still, waiting for you to come back.

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Afterthought: I originally wrote this story in late June of 2006 for a fiction blog that never really made it off the ground. The point was to take a picture of a setting and use it in a story; the inspiration for this story happened to be a picture of the second-floor balcony outside of the Sony Metreon in San Francisco, California, my hometown. This was the first idea that popped into my head upon seeing the picture.

November 29, 2007