Wallpaper

She was wallpaper. Or so she imagined. At every party or out to dinner with her friends she would be the one blending in to the background, merging with grey and becoming invisible. Unnoticed. A stranger or two would perhaps walk by , but without looking in her direction they would pass and go on being merely strangers. Like ships passing in the night. Her friends on the other hand would hook up, for a night or two, or for more long term relationships. And they would fall out of this world of ones and zeroes and become twosomes, the some ones. And yet she was still a no one in the background. No matter how few people she went out with she never got noticed. And soon she did not go out at all. She was wallpaper.

She had evolved and gotten used to being this shade of grey, like asphalt. She understood that by accepting who she was, she was surely amplifying her own social status, or lack thereof. Even worse, her hole person was affected by this; always with her head held down, letting her hair cover her face, always dressing in grey or black, the urban jungle camouflage, moving alongside the walls from corner to corner. Sometimes days would pass without her talking to anyone. Scared of losing her mind she would talk to her cat just to recall how to have a conversation, even just a monologue, how to relate to another living, breathing thing. Sadly she had realized that talking to a cat would mean that she had already lost her mind.

It was the loneliest of days; Sunday, and in spite of a chilling winter breeze she went out to buy the newspaper, just to see people. Just to talk to the man in the newspaper kiosk, even if he would not even look up from his work, or at all see her, not really, even if all he would say to her was; “That will be one-twenty”, and she would give him the money and take the newspaper and bid him farewell. Even if that was all, those crumbs were more than she had gotten all week.

On her way back, making her way through the people standing in queue outside the theater, not seeing her, not making way for her to pass, her eye caught a glimpse of steel blue eyes. A tall, handsome man stood out from all the rest with his beautiful eyes as blue as ice, yet warm looking. He caught her eye not because he was beautiful but because he literally caught her eye. Their eyes locked for a second, what felt like eternity and he saw. He saw her. She had stopped walking and stood frozen in his gaze. The masses flowed around them like seaweed under thundering waves, back and forth, but she stood, like a pillar of salt, firm and forceful.

It lasted no more than a heartbeat, a second, as the man broke contact ad stepped into a waiting cab. As he drove passed her, surely forever lost, she was drowning in a clash of contradicting emotions. Fear, adrenaline, excitement, joy and loneliness. Everything pounded at once through her body and mind, from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head. Like bulls in Pamplona pounding deathly through the streets it charged through her soul. With unease she took a faulty step, shuttered and with haste she walked home and locked the door behind her, suddenly feeling like the only person in the whole, wide world.

Weeks would pass, but the memory of being noticed left a trace of a smile on her face. A crocked smile like she was remembering something funny. At least that was what people who noticed her thought. They would see this ethereal being in a black winter coat and a red scarf, her hair in brown waves falling down her back, and her brown almond eyes seeing passed them and beyond to something too far away for them to grasp.

Her eyes kept searching her surroundings everywhere she went. Cafes, restaurants, shops, the sidewalk, the park, and back to the theater. Ignoring the interested glances from every other man, she had only eyes for the one she had seen weeks before. Like a drug ebbing out of her system she got more and more desperate for a new meet.

And then suddenly. On the busy sidewalk swarming with its grey masses of nobodies, she saw him. He was walking towards her, with what she perceived as determination in his steps. His eyes, oh, how she had missed his eyes! Her hart beat heavily with anticipation as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, walking towards him. He looked straight at her, ignoring everybody else, bumping shoulders with them every two steps, but never loosing his way.
As they closed distance, her cheeks turned red with embarrassment over how desperate she had longed for him. Longed for him to rest his eyes upon her soul again. To see her, really see her, helping her to step out of the shadows. Guiding her to wrestle loose from the wall, limb from limb, and becoming visible.

A tapping sound caught her attention. One-two-tap, one-two-tap. People were moving out of the way from him who had her hart, and their distance closed in. His icy blue eyes were a mere arms length away when she, as their eye contact broke, noticed the source of the tapping-sound. And as the earth shattered in a million pieces he walked passed her with a white stick held in his right hand tapping the asphalt every two step.

With a one-two-tap she was wallpaper again.