Seven Eleven

So I finally got to meet you in person, after maybe 10 years?

You named a station I've never heard of. I looked it up on the metro and found it.

I was early, as usual.

I took a fashion magazine on the shelf at the entrance and started reading.

Next to it were other types of magazines, pornography mostly. It's funny in this country how different things are presented side by side, as if they try to tell you everything is the same, really.

 At 8pm, when we're supposed to meet, you were not there yet.

I walked around the store, looked at the neatly packed sandwiches which I love.

Then I saw some rice sake in a cute carton box with a devil's face on it. I took it and went to the cashier.

I went back to the magazine stack, flipping through another magazine and waited.

The glass door slid open, my heart lifted a bit.

But it was not you.

At 8.40pm, I started to feel a little down.

So I left.

I walked back to the station, looking at the faces coming my direction, thinking if I would see you on the street.

 No.

At the station, I checked the other side of the same exit (which I've done before).

I couldn't be wrong about the location, I thought.

Then I took a small turn, and there you were.

Wearing a hat (not red), standing in the middle of the exit, looking at the people coming out the station. Looking for me.

I knew we're going to have a nice chat.

It's nice to see your face and hear your voice.

It was real, and surreal.

Like many things in life, what we expect may not happen, and vice versa.

Just being able to meet and talk in the same time and space, is magical and

beautiful.