You are a Flower Blossoming out of the Darkness

‘I felt your love,’ I said.

She sat opposite me in the restaurant and looked at her watch.

‘I have to get back,’ she said, and was about to get up from the table.

‘Wait,’ I said quickly. ‘Wait – your voice, before, when you were with the others – just listening to you, I could hear it in your voice – so beautiful, like an elegant silk, woven with the pulse of a warm, calm love for people and how much you want to help them. You ignited a love inside me for you.’

She paused in the chair.

‘I’ve been all over the world as a photographer,’ I said, ‘from New York to Tokyo, and I’ve seen so many things, so much anger and hate – but you, you’re something else… like some flower blossoming out of the darkness. As I took your picture for the magazine, while the light was falling softly from the sky as though it knew by blessing you it would be blessed itself, like it was honoured to touch you… something inside told me I would never meet a love like yours from anyone and anywhere else.’

‘I’m nothing special,’ she said with a shrug.

‘There you go again. You’re wonderful and yet so humble. Not a trace of vanity. And here’s me, falling in love with you so much I don’t recognise myself anymore.’