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Beautiful Day

Posted on July 23, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

It was a beautiful day and he was taking a walk, from the place where he lived to the place where he worked because it was a half hour he would gladly spend to enjoy the sunshine and the cool breeze that turned corners around the architecture and caressed people and pets alike. He was thinking about how nice everything looked and how he wished he had an artistic bone in his body that allowed him to capture it in a photograph or a painting or a poem.

When people asked him what he thought of a particular movie or piece of art or song he always said, “I’m an accountant,” as if that absolved him of the responsibility of having an opinion about things. So the people who asked his opinion ceased pursuit of that line of questioning and made the private judgment that he was weird. It wasn’t that he didn’t have an opinion but he simply believed that ‘he who cannot do must not judge’ so he kept his opinions to himself and periodically regretted not having any artistic ability.

As he walked to work that morning he felt that God was the greatest artist of all and this day was a particularly fine creation. He knew that it was probably raining in some other part of the world and he spared a thought for the people that were rushing from bus station or car to office building with magazines, newspapers or umbrellas aloft to keep the rain off their work clothes. He was glad he wasn’t one of them.

He was walking past a short residential building that looked completely out of place among the architectural behemoths that surrounded it when he felt a couple of drops of water on his face. He stopped in his tracks and frowned. Every mathematical calculation he could run off in his head confirmed that he was too far away from the office building to make a dash for it. Two more drops hit him and he felt, through some distant memory, that he knew that rhythm of falling liquid. He couldn’t immediately place it so he looked up, ready to scold some insensitive soul who might be over-watering a defenseless plant.

And he saw her.

She was beautiful in the manner of forgotten movies and romantic postcards from a bygone era. Elbows on the window sill she was staring straight ahead and crying. He didn’t pride himself on possessing an imagination but somehow he could see what she must look like from inside the room. The room would be dark and the light from the morning sun would have highlighted her frame, reflecting off strands of hair and the curve of her upper arm and shoulder. A crease of light would distinguish her buttocks and hint at the point where the two cheeks met. Her back would be arched and she would breathe a heavy sigh in between falling teardrops. He imagined it all and he took a step back to look at her more clearly.

Perhaps it was his backward motion or perhaps it’s just that a beautiful woman always knows when male eyes are on her because she looked down at him and their eyes met. He ran an index finger down his cheek from each eye and shook his head slowly from side to side.

Don’t cry.

She laughed through a sob.

He shook his head again and held his arm out like a showman focusing the audience’s attention on the giant elephant with all four feet on a beach ball. In his case the elephant was the beautiful day and he wanted her to see it. He made the sign for ‘don’t cry’ again. She pawed at her eyes, wiped the tears away, nodded and smiled.

And then she disappeared from the window.

His eyebrows rose and his arm reached out for her as if he wasn’t ready to let her go but all there was at the window was the blackness of the unlit room beyond. The day suddenly seemed a little less bright and beautiful and he was about to walk away when the blue door at ground level opened and she peeked at him from beyond it. He took a step forward…and then another, and before he even realised it he had crossed the threshold and she shut the door behind her. Then she took his hand and led him upstairs. When they were inside, she turned to him and he opened his mouth to say something but she raised her fingers to his mouth and let their tips hang off his upper lip. With the slightest shake of her head she indicated that conversation was not what she needed.

Perhaps it’s a talent certain women possess because he was looking at her the whole time but he couldn’t remember the exact moment when she slipped out of her dress. Suddenly they were in bed and he was making love to a woman far above his station. It occurred to him that he normally paid for service like this. As he achieved climax he looked out at the beauty of the day and decided that it was beyond beautiful, it was magical.

And then he heard the shower.

The water was still running but it was clear that someone had opened a bathroom door. The woman’s eyes went wide and she pushed him with such force he flew right off her and onto the hardwood floor with a thud that echoed around the house. She tossed his trousers at him and hissed, “It’s my husband. You have to leave!”

His zipper was barely up before she pushed him in the direction of the window. He didn’t think or evaluate the possibility of spinal damage or a severely wrenched ankle. He simply dangled and jumped.

She was enjoying the sunshine on her way to the grocery store when she heard the man fall to the pavement. He didn’t notice her because he was too busy distancing himself from the scene of his crime but she liked how he looked. She decided to follow him and see where he went. She hadn’t followed anyone around since the last guy who died in that car crash while trying to get away from her.

It really was a beautiful day and she thought it was the perfect one to begin stalking a new man. She beamed with satisfaction and hurried to keep him in sight.

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