Blind Date

I first saw her at an outdoor cafe patting her dog cozying under the table, with her dark sunglasses and her fluorescent yellow jacket, inspecting the crowd. "May I join you?" I asked and she didn't mind. Inevitably we started a friendly chit chat and she said she had a lot on her mind, school and all, and I told her what was really on my mind, looking for a date to enjoy Summer together. "I could be your date," she jolted and so we began on a more serious footing within minutes, asking questions that were relevant on our mind. Did she like sports and what was her favorite movie? She said she was more into music than movies and was a fan of David Bowie. I too had eclectic taste and liked musicals. We talked incessantly about Bowie and his 'Little China Girl'. Her mother was Spanish from Central America, her father a linguist, conveniently aiding the ruse. She asked me if I liked dogs and Yes I said wondering how old hers was? She said 12 and then I wondered if that was not too old for a dog and she said she hoped not. We were clearly a match and I had to rush to work and we exchanged numbers and that's when I noticed for the first time she was blind. How deftly the eye deceives. She was concealing herself in plain sight. Of course, she knew how quickly this could make me disappear, but I queried further. Losing your eyes is easier than you can imagine, she said, recounting the moment she was caught at a Paris demo, a curiosity factor with the gilets jaune, and the ruthless police spray, blinding hundreds, and then I was thinking, maybe she wants a younger husband in her tender age, my premonition told me of her absolute future devotion to me, until the day she touched the bald spot and then our love lost its innocence. Touch here, sink your finger in my head, but it was for my lips that her finger hushed me, just like Bowie's little China girl.