Brief encounter

I was on my way home on a warm Indian summer evening, strolling west on 21st Street and feeling chipper. I was pleased and relieved that my guest appearance in a class taught by a former student had gone well and tickled at the very thought that I should be asked to appear as an esteemed -- coughcough -- author before a group of college students.

As I neared Eighth Avenue, I noticed just ahead a little girl out frolicking on the sidewalk, with a smiling man I took to be her father watching over her.

She was an adorable child -- almost impossibly cute, really -- with ebony curls that fell just past her shoulders and a pretty little dress. She was four or five -- six at the oldest -- and had a lovely dark complexion that, in the dim light, made her ancestry hard to pinpoint. She could have been Greek or Iranian or any of two dozen other nationalities. She resembled no one so much as Hugo's Esmerelda as a child.

As I drew within fifteen or twenty feet, I caught her eye and she stopped where she stood with each arm straight out, parallel to the ground. Clearly, she was playing sentry and I was not to be allowed to pass.

She had a twinkle in her eye and a grin slowly forming on her lips, and I couldn't have been more charmed.

I crouched down a bit, to let her know that the game was on, and as I scurried to my right a few steps, as if to skirt her in that direction, she moved with me, blocking me from passing.

"Teresa!" her father gently chided her, warmth and affection in his voice.

I scurried back to the left, as if to evade her in that direction, and she was right there with me, giggling all the while. We went to and fro a couple more times until finally I tiptoed quickly past her to the right, thinking the game was at an end.

"Wait," she protested. "That's not how it goes!"

"Oh, no?" I asked, returning to her. "How does it work?"

"You come up to the gate" -- clearly she was the gate -- "and you say, 'Open Sesame.' Then the gate lets you pass."

"Oh, I see," I said, as if the scales had finally fallen from my eyes. I returned to my initial position, crept up to her, and, leaning over, said, "Open Sesame!"

With a beaming smile, she stepped ceremoniously to the side, saying, "Now you can pass."

I patted her lovely head as I passed, saying, "Thank you, little gate." A few steps further down the sidewalk, I turned and said, "I'll see you next time, little gate."

"See you next time!" she called back.

As I continued homeward, my heart swelled so that I feared it might burst. The entire silly, serendipitous encounter couldn't have lasted more than ninety seconds, but I expect I won't forget it as long as I live.

Posted by brett at 12:49 AM | TrackBack