Just a short monologue I thought i'd try, something different. Rip it to shreds
Love is blind
Mary is sitting on a single bed, reading a book. The room is small and appears smaller by a thick lining of book cases, housing a range of difficult literature in varyingly large volumes. A pair of glasses with no lenses sits on the bed side table next to a flickering lamp.
After Martin was so enthralled by The Greek Gods our last super, I knew it would be positively criminal if I did not find out more. Appearing a ‘goldfish’ is the last thing that I want to occur; gulping the air blankly as though it might feed me the answer – No, I have already finished “The Guide to Greek Gods” and am currently commencing Volume Two of the collection. I can now proudly differentiate my Apollo from my Hermes and my Eros from Pan; adequately equipped for a splendidly stimulating evening.
Our last date was a positively glowing success. The evening had been arranged through a mutual friend, and I was filled with nerves as to how the potential suitor would be. However, I was not disappointed. I knew it was him from the moment he entered, the epitome of my type, as Marianna had promised, although I do recall a slight raise of the eyebrows when I described, with no untouched detail, what my sort was. With a beautifully sleek head and a glistening eyebrow, I must admit to sighing appreciatively as he approached, and again as he outstretched a hand; blissfully callused from a manual trade. “The name’s Mar’in” he introduced as he endeavoured to sit and I smiled knowingly before commencing conversation. First history then politics, I trilled with unbound exuberance over the topical subjects, whilst ensuring to leave him the adequate time to reply;
“What do you think of current political environment?”
“I...”
“It’s quite invigorating isn’t it?”
“Well...”
“Never seen anything like it”
“Rea...?”
“And I studied politics at A Level”
We had covered media and international relations by dessert; a profound achievement I had never quite managed to reach before on a date. Martin was listening so intently that his eyes began to latch onto objects; the salt, the menu, the cutlery, the waitress – as though he had to look elsewhere to listen at optimum level. However, once we had exhausted The Situation in Gaza, I found myself at a loss. All other possibilities of topics fluttered away, rendering me speechless and, ultimately, helpless. A pained silence commenced, until, defeated, I shrugged “I like your tattoo” as my final words.
Admittedly, unusual, before this point, the evening was not, for I have dated many “Martin”s, and the conversation, with its slight uplift, remains stiffly the same. However, at the utterance of this simplistic compliment, Martin looked at his tattoo; cupid holding an arrow whilst balancing niftily on his bicep, looked back at me and suddenly bound into a grin. And from that point on...a different kind of conversation commenced which continued long after coffee. A second date was arranged. Martin and his tattoo of Eros waited for me until my taxi showed.
Looking back on it now, I feel quite bewildered. For it would seem that, despite our topically conversational excursion, the purest enjoyment of the evening stemmed from a comment most artless in nature. I find this concept most muddling to comprehend, for as I survey my countless collection of classics, I fail to recall any speak of the magnificence of simplicity.
The room has been stripped of its many book shelves. A long forgotten window, previously hidden by books, has been reawakened and allows sunlight to shine into the room. Two light novels lie on the bedside table, next to a vase of colourful flowers. Mary is standing by the window, looking out.
My second meeting with Martin was something quite different. I decided against memorising Volume Two of the Greek collection. In fact, I tried my best to erase my knowledge of Volume One. For it occurred to me that, despite the many answers the collection undoubtedly possessed: they were not the true solution to what I really wanted. It came to me that the only knowledge I truly desired was not the intellectual, the details of Hermes and Pan, but the trivial - Martin’s birthday, whether he had any pets...
And so I arrived at our second date unarmed with knowledge, feeling strangely vulnerable as I sat down at the table. An emergency trip to the library was tempting but I suppressed the urge, and as he appeared, with his tattoo and wonderfully uneven smile, I knew, at once, that I had made the right choice. We talked throughout the evening about the littlest things; his birthday was on the 23rd November and he had a pet bulldog called Terror who was “A bi’ rough around the edges, bu’ a good pup at heart.”
I found that my previous intellectual walls had melted away through the course of the evening, and even when we ordered dessert; “The Colossal”, which turned out to be ice cream, sparklers, balloons... and Martin had only said “Not bad eh?”, I felt a great torrent of warmth, not the urge to amend. “Not bad at all” I replied, squeezing his arm and watching his tattoo of Cupid and his arrow throb.
