The Woman and The Man

On an unseasonably warm day early in February, a boy walked along an east facing sidewalk in a small city's business district. The street, Main Street, was lined by buildings no more than five stories tall in which coffee shops, western-wear stores, restaurants and markets resided among other things. Although the boy was to be comfortably considered a man by age, one would be strictly compelled-if based on nothing more than his demeanor in the months preceding this day-to consider him a boy. He was purely an average boy, possessed of an apparent slump in his shoulders and a subtle jaw line. His eyes were deep and blue, and they were weary for reasons that cannot be known. His one feature capable of soliciting attention was his hair. He wore it past his ears and brushed it behind and to the left side of his forehead. It was brown and wavy and wild so that any girl who walked past turned their neck back around to glimpse its owner another time.

He walked by people and buildings that, although he had seen before, he was always able to find a new interest in. He walked down Main Street many times, always on the East-facing sidewalk and never the West. Each time, with the road on his left side and when the buildings ended and the pedestrians were less, the boy turned right onto the last street and returned home through the park. The more he walked this route, the more things that seemed to change. The buildings were continually infiltrated by new shoppers, and those passing on the sidewalk were rarely the ones from before. On each walk the street was neither the same nor different-it had merely matured.

The boy looked around at the people passing. A man dressed in business attire laughed into his earpiece. A woman rushed from the lobby of her hotel into a cab. A child held the hands of his parents and swung back and forth as they held him barely above the concrete. The child smiled the way we all used to when we held our parents' hands. It was refreshing for the boy to see all these things as he walked.

Looking ahead of him now, a woman caught his eye. She was a woman for whom a man removes his cap. For whom a man pulls out her seat. For whom a man holds the door-not just on the first or second encounter, but every time. And she was looking dead at the boy.

Not sure of what to do, he glanced toward the ground. The ground, however, never appealed much to the boy and he quickly sought a different view. Looking around at an unnaturally fast pace, he desperately attempted to avoid eye contact. He looked left and looked right; he repeated this process too many times. For a brief second every few steps, he glanced in front of him to see where the woman's gaze lied. Her gaze met his each of four times. When the woman was a block and a half away from the boy, he became noticeably nervous and flushed in the face. Not so flushed that anyone could notice, but flushed to the point that he was uncomfortably sure that a beautiful woman walking by would.

The woman, the beautiful woman, wore a low-cut tie-dyed t-shirt covered by an open leather jacket. She wrapped her long, slender legs in black skinny jeans that eventually gave way to a pair of black high heels. She had fair skin and perfectly smeared red lipstick. Her green eyes both threatened and comforted those lucky enough to look into them. Her hair was brunette, worn long and straight, and she carried herself as though she understood the magnitude of her being.

Eyes jutting from one corner to the other of his sockets, and the woman finally on the same block as the boy, he quickly realized he would have to carry himself in a manner presentable to a woman of such stature. Instinctively, he straightened his back and lifted his head. He looked unflinchingly forward and into the eyes of the woman walking toward him. He felt both threatened and comforted. He was nervous but did not dare to show it. As the woman walked closer, the ends of his lips curled into a smile and he removed his winter cap. His head began to twist left, as his eyes were still set on hers. It was soon apparent however, that as she passed she was not looking at him, rather through him. It cannot be said when she stopped gazing at him, if ever she had begun, but she certainly wasn't looking at the boy the way he was looking at her now.

The boy was surprised that the woman had looked away. Still, he was certain that she had been looking to him until just before they crossed paths and that maybe she saw in him something rarely seen. Or perhaps it was he who saw this thing in her. He was unsure. He thought on these things as she walked away.

Having now passed by the boy, the woman looked ahead without wavering. She walked confidently forward never taking the time to see where she was heading. And as she walked away from the boy, he couldn't help but to follow her with his eyes. He stopped in order to steal one more glimpse of her, then another and another. He was turned around on the sidewalk, still for a minute or more.

Without so much as looking before she entered the road, the woman crossed onto the block the boy had just been walking on. In the same manner, she turned immediately right to cross Main Street. Luckily, as she stepped into the road the orange hand across the street turned into a white man walking-though she certainly never noticed.

If she had bothered even once to take notice of her surroundings, she would have seen men in three separate cars captivated by her looks and by her style as she passed in front of each of them. When she was on the opposite sidewalk heading west, away from the boy, the light turned green and one car went forward. The other three remained for some seconds, before horns started sounding, stopped behind the crosswalk following the woman attentively with their eyes.

Had she looked back the woman also would have noticed hoards of men, and some women, captivated by her looks, by her style, by her grace. Many people turned their heads and others stopped completely. There were men with wives and families who were tempted to look back but never did. Still, most everyone noticed this woman.

Still in awe over the beautiful woman, the boy stood staring back at her even after she was a few blocks away; long after most of the others resumed walking. Then, not knowing how or why, and not by any will of his own, he escaped his standing position and, cap in hand, ran toward the woman. Sprinted toward the woman. Sprinted in the direction he always came from and never went to. Sprinted down this ever-changing street with his eyes pointed unfalteringly toward the woman. He dashed across the street while drivers jammed on their brakes and blared their horns. He didn't flinch, rather he kept sprinting. And by all of those still captivated by the woman, and even by those who were no longer, it was surely understood why this man, this man, was running.