Hairy Fairy Tale [Stock Photo]
Once upon, what time is it? or relatively flexibles, there lived a woman with soft clutching hair, the kind that stuck to her face when it was hot out and she perspired.
That day was especially humid, so the woman could barely see out the front of her face, even while on the subway.
Moving as much of the mess away from her face, she sat down and broke out her book, not by but on, Bertrand Russell.
She had in her mind when getting on the subway her stop, to remember to watch for it, but being so engrossed in her tome it completely passed her by.
Noticing her omission of the quality of perception of time and place, she decided that, it being significantly cooler on the subway than it was outside, and her reasons for being on the subway in the first place were relatively trivial, to ride to the end of the line and enjoy.
The air-conditioning was so high, in fact, that her wet hair seemed to stick to her face with even more rigidity - as if clutching to her body for warmth as not to freeze and fall out completely.
As luck, time, the fates, God, whathaveyou, would have it, a young man sitting across from her noticed her, or her book, or both and put two and two together and began smiling in her general direction, in an awkward attempt to grab her attention.
He did not know what he would do in order to hold it.
After seven stops of him attempting at this maneuver, she finally noticed, smiled briefly, and quickly returned her face down to her book.
At least she smiled, he thought to himself.
His own stop approaching, he decided to remain on the train to pursue the woman further. He was merely on his way to pick up some things, and considered this particular pick-up to be of greater importance than the crabs from Chinatown he had intended.
Four stops from the end of the line, he decided to be brave, bracing himself, and struck up a modest conversation:
“Russell’s pretty great, huh?”
She looked up at him, squinting.
“Well, this isn’t Russell, but yeah, I think so too.”
Trying to move the conversation, be it that it may, towards a more positive light, he asked:
“What’s your favorite?”
Thinking to herself for a second, and wiping some strands of hair from her face, she said:
“Probably the one about happiness. I like thinking about happiness.”
“He’s got good things to say about happiness. That one makes me happy too.”
“Yeah.”
They continue talking in this manner until the subway reached the end of the line, at which point they both got off and moved to the opposite platform to return the journey uptown.
She admitted that she had merely been on the train for the air-conditioning. He lied and told her the same.
They continued their cool, sympathetic conversation on the scorching platform, waiting for the next train.
They continued their conversation, varying topics from authors the woman had never heard of but loved; about foods that tasted good; about favorite things to do but never done.
They continued their conversation well past their respective intended stops, through multiple stations through the city, chatting with varying degrees of enthusiasm, up to the opposite end of the line, both lying and saying that they were simply enjoying the coolness of the ride and conversation.
At the opposite end of town, in what was considered relatively “bad”, he made a suggestion.
“Wanna be bad and grab a cheap drink somewhere?”
She agreed.
They then walked up to the street level, where the heat was far worse than they had both remembered, individually making them wish that they could simply stay on the subway forever.
It was awkward, he thought, seeing her face sweat so much. He searched the streets for a place that looked like it had full air-conditioning, which was difficult to find given the poverty of the location they were then at.
She was the one to finally find a place that looked cold.
“That looks like somewhere that would cool us off...”
“Yeah, it does.”
They both ordered the same cheap beer.
And they lived happily ever after, together even.
The End.
