Both are convinced that a sudden surge of emotion bound them together. Beautiful is such a certainty, but uncertainty1 is more beautiful. Because they didn't know each other earlier, they suppose that nothing was happening between them.
What of the streets, stairways and corridors where they could have passed each other long ago? I'd like to ask them whether they remember -- perhaps in a revolving2 door ever being face to face? An excuse me in a crowd or a voice wrong number in the receiver.
But I know their answer: no, they don't remember. They'd be greatly astonished to learn that for a long time chance had been playing with them. Not yet wholly ready to transform. into fate for them it approached them, then backed off, stood in their way and, suppressing a giggle3, jumped to the side. There were signs, signals: but what of it if they were illegible4.
Perhaps ten years ago, or last Tuesday did a certain leaflet fly from shoulder to shoulder? There was something lost and picked up. Who knows but what it was a ball in the bushed5 of childhood. There were doorknobs and bells on which earlier touch piled on touch. Bags beside each other in the luggage room. Perhaps they had the same dream on a certain night, suddenly erased6 after waking. Every beginning is but a continuation, and the book of events is never more than half open.
