People On Paper

I knew a boy. One evening, we were thrown together by the decrees of fate on the first row of the auditorium. It was pitch dark. But his profile glowed by the light from the stage. In between performances, we tried to talk, out of politeness. We had heard much of each other through mutual friends. We had even exchanged a couple of desultory forwarded emails. Is that not excuse enough to start a conversation?

The giant CCTV screen stood before us. Giant shadows of the two of us played on the screen for everyone to see. Massive. Black. Unlike the real 'him' and 'me'. Good entertainment between performances, nevertheless. That evening, all my responses were directed at his shadow on the CCTV screen for I could not see his face. He was witty. I was not. He had something to say about dirty dancing. I smiled stiffly. My shadow didn't. Semantic gap.The questions and responses soon dwindled. I came in with an image of him formed in the mind by reported conversations and anecdotes by friends during lazy evening canteen encounters. I left with the memory of a silhouette.

I see his writing on the internet. It suggests an urgency to plot life in black and white. Witticisms and opinions punctuated with expletives. It speaks of dreams a few thousand miles away. Writing is the only language I can understand. I try to imagine the pattern of his neuronic impulses through his choice of nouns, adjectives and adverbs. I try matching sentences with shadows on giant screens.

I smile stiffly. He remains a shadow.