Through the Eyes of a Lonely Man

Step into a crowded restaurant. The air is filled with movement and sound. Colors run rampant everywhere in the form of paintings, designs on the walls, and musical notes and chords. You walk in, out of the cool night, and sit at a table set for two. The napkin is folded in a pathetic attempt at looking fancy, though it is made of paper. It was worth a try, right? The Mexican music fills the strangely lit room with a faintly foreign and unusual air. Yet it was not intimidating. The chatter is everywhere. You look at the empty seat across from you and look away again, taking in the movement and animation around you.

As you sit, you take notice of an elderly Mexican couple. They are short, squat perfecting the look of contented grandparents. As you look at them, you see them smiling occasionally, their white teeth lighting up their tanned skin. There is something young about them as you look closer. They laugh with too much enthusiasm and they talk with too much liveliness. You can see the people they were when they were younger. They have preserved their youth in perfect shape inside of their aging bodies. You look away, feeling a sense of longing. Why?

As your gaze flits through the mass of waiters in scarlet shirts and black trousers and the dancers with their full skirts, midnight black hair, and graceful arms, you take in the energy around you. Several tables in the crowded room have several young children, chattering and squabbling amongst themselves while their parents reprimand them and resume conversation as the children start again.

A young dancer comes out of seemingly nowhere and starts dancing nearby to your table as the band started up a new song, "La Bamba" a Mexican favorite. She has red flowers in her hair and her face is the definition of youth and beauty. Her dark brown eyes are large and deep set in her dark face, with scarlet red lips to match the exotic flowers in her dark, dark hair. She stops as the music ends and flits away into the shadows of the dim lights of the hallways leading away from the crowded room, into the kitchen.

You continued your observations of the people around you. Another couple sat across the room, but you could make them out though the colors and lights and shadows that seemed to move with the music. The world in this restaurant was not moving. Though the people in the place moved and the music continued, song after song everything stayed the same. A routine performed over and over again.

Your gaze goes back to the couple. They are white, not Mexican or South American of any sort. They look American from the way the dress to their facial expressions. The young man, close to thirty years old, is chatting away with her and she, a blond young woman not a day over twenty-five, reacts in an unnatural, unrelaxed way. As the conversation continues and their food disappears, the young man turns around and nods to a nearby waiter as his date digs into her brown Louis Vuitton handbag. She suddenly pulls out some papers and puts on a pair of glasses, making her look a lot more intelligent, as well as interested, than she had looked before. Perhaps it was the barrier between the rest of the world and her vacant eyes, or maybe it was that she is doing something she finds appealing.

Suddenly the music changes and the man stands up, crosses to the other side of the table and kneels down on one knee. She drops her papers and her glasses slide down her nose. He takes her hand and spoke. There is a pause between the two that no one else, besides you, notices. They are too wrapped up in their own little worlds to notice something so important in two other peoples' lives.

You can't take your eyes off the couple. This is something you have never seen before. You need to know how it would turn out, not because you are snooping, but because you feel the significance of the moment for this man, so close to you in age.

The woman suddenly moves. She pulls her hand back and jumps up. She says something to him and looks truly sorry and then takes off her glasses, places them into her jacket pocket and walks out, her bag swinging from her arm. The man stares after her, still on one knee in front of the empty chair. Suddenly he breaks the spell that had been cast over him. He stands up, puts something back into his right-hand pocket and sits down, as if nothing had happened. He signals to the waiter for the check and looks around to see if anyone had noticed the scene. No one had.

His eyes meet yours from all the way across the room and you smile as if to give him some reassurance. His face is dead white and he no longer looks as composed and surly as he had before. He looks away out of sheer embarrassment. He throws down a couple of bills on top of the check, gathers his jacket under his arm and puts his hat back on. He walks out, passing your table. The breeze that he leaves as he skitters past almost holds the despair that had been so clearly written on his face and in his movements.

You look away from the door, sadly. As you glance around again, your eyes again fall on the elderly Mexican couple nearby. They are holding hands across the table with mugs of warm liquid steaming in front of them. They do not rush to sip them or force any expressions or words. They are completely absorbed in their own little world.

The young dancer returns to dance to the new song that had just started with a string of bouncy beats. She catches your eye and smiles and then continues to dance, the flowers and skirts, bouncing with her movements. You glance at the elderly couple one more time as the old man finally stands, walks to the other side of the table and pulls the woman's chair back. He offers his hand and she takes it, rising slowly. They walk to the little area meant for dancing and they start to dance a strange mixture of a waltz, tango, and swing. The little dancer makes room for them and again flits away without even a backwards glance at you.

You watch the couple for a time. They do not rush. Then a slower song comes on and they twirl slowly in one another's arms, looking into each other faces and laughing occasionally.

They have all the time eternity can grant them.