erithacus' saga: if you could see her through my eyes

“Well I am sorry,” she said emphatically. This time I didn’t reply, not wanting to get caught up in the same trap as before. The emotional tide seemed to have turned and I longed to put my arms round her and hold her. Hesitation however made my limbs feel like heavy, superfluous appendages. Tender, romantic moments were not my strong point. Act on impulse, I told myself, so I brushed Mary’s arm with my fingers. I fumbled to take her hand in mine but only managed to get hold of the tip of her little finger. This was lost in my own ape-like forelimb, so I gathered in some more of her arm to enhance purchase.

Hand-holding soon became unsatisfactory. Emboldened by not having been rejected I put my arm around her waist and swung her around, old-film style, to kiss her. I haltered. Self-consciousness had got the better of me and I was caught between action replay-like excessive lingering while my face approached hers and going in at high speed like a hungry hyena cub edging in on a dead animal carcass in the African savannah. I opted for the second approach and our heads banged together. Somehow the contact of my cut, chaffed fleshy mouth-opening with her soft warm lips sent an electric impulse through my body, which twitched spasmodically several times.

Mary drew away, took my hand and led me to a patch of grass away from the path. She threw herself on the ground and pulled me down afterwards.

Was there any great skill to kissing? Did it come naturally or could kissing excellence be achieved trough painstaking dedication and practice? Was it simply a question of kissers wiggling their tongues around in each other’s mouths or did true kiss quality involve a subtle interchange of kisser and co-kisser roles? Perhaps the criteria for success included the absence of copious saliva, coughing fits or high-pitched mosquito-like whining noises.

Suddenly Mary broke the gasket-like seal our lips had made and pulled her face away slightly. She looked into my eyes.

“Look at my eyes” she told me.
“I am” I replied.
“No, I mean really look at them”, Mary insisted.
“I don’t understand” I answered, confused.
“Look into my eyes and tell me what you see;” she went on.

I hesitated a moment and did what she had told me. The twenty-centimetre distance between our heads made it difficult to focus on both eyes at the same time so I looked from one to the other and then back again.

“Well?” she asked.
“They’re very ...pretty” I stammered pathetically. Mary ignored the comment.
“I mean, what do you feel when you look at them?” she continued.

After a lengthy pause I muttered an answer I thought she might want to hear.
“There’s a kind of mixture between happiness and sadness.”
“Try again” she instructed.
I looked again and saw my own reflection in her pupils.
“I can see your loneliness” I went on.
“Is that my loneliness or yours?” asked Mary.

I began to understand. What I thought I saw in her might in fact be a projection of myself. Was the deep connection I felt neither empathy nor understanding? Was I was creating her in my own image and, if so, where did my own image come from?