Brewed Beverage of Choice: a cup of afternoon tea!
(Written last night at the Blue Monk whilst I sat warming the cockles with a couple of pints of ale)
She walked past me in a leisure gait. Her intoxicating aroma arousing something in me as it reached for my nose. You know the way. Like that of a young child reaching for your nose as it is held in the arms of mother. Though it is not hard to describe the scent, it is one only a man of loneliness recognizes. Not because he is in a desirable state, a state of great longing. Well not only because of that state. But because it is a scent only a man of open mind, a man of want, a man in touch with his senses can taste, can smell, can endure. All the things loneliness provides.
Men who are ‘in’ relationships become sedintary and often take aroma for granted. They become sensually lethargic when it comes to the scent of a woman. It is an easy trap to fall into for all who come within its grasp. And do not think that it is just the man caught. Women can get their legs caught as well. But I am a man and cannot speak for a woman.
And so she walks past and leaves her scent slowly following behind, putting my mind in an erotic yet sensual frame of reference. The dream of our passionate embrace. The visions of the two of us tangled amongst the tangle of sheets. These are what trails that scent. Follows it like cherry blossoms in an easterly of the mountains.
These are not the visions of just the lonely person. The married man down the street has these visions. Yet they are visions of escapism as he sits in front of the computer screen typing a proposal, or as he sits in stalled traffic on the way home. For a single man, which I have termed lonely earlier…let’s face it…single = lonely at some time…not all the time mind you…it just so happens I felt the pang of loneliness as she past my table in the cafe. But back to the point.
A single man has the afore mentioned visions not out of escapism, but out of heightened senses. The senses of a hunter, of a wolf. These are visions of rememberence, of delight, of hunger. These are the visions of someone who through no fault of his own cannot or has not participated in the hunt. One who knows of the fire it brings. One who knows.
To say a lonely person is a hungry person is cliche. That, however, does not take away from its truth. Remember after all that lonely = single = hungry. To be hungry does not however mean one is starving. Is that too much for you? The hunter in all of us is brought when we are at our hungriest. And the best hunters are the ones most keenly aware. The ones who will catch onto a scent.
She walks past my table on her way to the front of the cafe, her scent following behind her like the Yangtze flows. I ready my bow and aim only to disarm. I am hungry, yet not starving. Besides the scent is far too intoxicating.