Memories.............

There are very few things that stick in your mind for a long time, sometimes forever.

The first girl I fell hopelessly in love with, so smitten was I. She had no idea though, I think.

It’s not that I was cowardly as a general principle, she just removed words from my head, it was a clean slate whenever she was around.

I can talk a lot. Those who know me will more than testify to that!

Based on that, being forced into a stammer every time a girl walks past is pretty hard to swallow, more so when she turns and talks to you.

I remember one time I had to close my eyes and only then did a string of barely coherent words make their way via my chords. You see, she had these big eyes, when I say big, I don’t mean enormous. In fact, I’m not sure they were big at all, it’s just that every time she turned to look at me, it’s like she could stare through me. Being made to feel so invisible is a powerful grip on you.

I could say so many things about her, but to be honest, I’d just get lost in my head. Time and space would cease to be and the only matter (mass) would be her. That can’t work, illustrated below.

To say the truth, I believe she knew she had one over me, one time I was walking to mass, and so was she.....................and her friends. I tried to avoid them, I swear I did. But I felt like a comet on a path around our solar system and she was the sun. The laws of physics are absolute and unbreakable. I naturally gravitated towards her....and got burnt.

“Hi, Kip!” She turned and said with that radiating smile, our eyes locked for the briefest of times.

My brain kicked into action, if it was a car, it was a WilliamsFW27 being driven at Monza by Juan Pablo Montoya in the 2004 pre qualifying. In other words, it was really really fast!

So fast in fact, my mouth couldn’t catch up. A...a.....a..........a...............a...................AA!
I turned and walked away leaving the ladies giggling like they was audience to a
Richard Pryor performance. Notice the word ladies, if they were just some chics, I’d have drowned in a sea of laughter!

I don’t know how I managed to, but I did. I turned my head round to catch another glimpse of her, so etiolated by her was I!

As her companions circled in on her, wide eyed and chirping, she was still looking at me, with THE smile.

I now know, I was WHIPPED!

That’s the memory that’ll always stick with me, not the laughable awkwardness of the situations, but being whipped. By her! Been infatuated a few times after her, never whipped.

Haven’t seen her in a while, she left for a foreign land and probably never came back. Not sure I want her to be around as well.

I cut off all contact with her, the fruit I could never have. Sometimes that made me wish I was called Eve instead of Steve.

I’ll stop talking about her now, the feelings deviating from nostalgia.

I was 16 and held on to the belief they’re many fish in the sea.......but people truly beautiful like her are found only in remote, tranquil and fresh, inland lakes.