David Paul Nixon: The Website

Meeting ‘The One’

Have you heard them talk about the one.

The person who’s your perfect match.

That person you’ll meet and you’ll just know that you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with them.

One day I met that special someone.

It was a beautiful day. The sun had brightened up a miserable morning. The puddles were drying up and the droplets of water still on the trees and on the grass were beginning to sparkle.

It was passing through Datchet on its way to Windsor. With no batteries in my Walkman I had to listen to the sound of the train in motion. As it rattled along everything was calm. Even the usually loud commuters, many of them French families who found the name Datchet unusually hilarious, were quiet. The whole world seemed to be deep in contemplation.

An announcement broke the calm. The voice stated that we were arriving at Windsor and Eton Riverside, that we should make sure we had all our belongings with us and thanking us for using their train service, because we had a great deal of choice in the matter.

The commuters’ grabbed hold of their belongings, left their newspapers on their seats and moved toward the door. I grabbed my bag, checked my wallet was still in my pocket, stood and moved slowly to the doors.

The platform moved slowly past and the next set of passengers took hold of their belongings to come aboard. They crowd round the doors as we come to a stop and then they move away again because people like me have to get off the train first. As I push through the commuter mass trying to leave the train, she just catches my eye.

I spot her.

She is beautiful. She has curly black hair and not blue, but green eyes. Her skin is close to white and she wears blue, my favourite colour. They are casual clothes yet they are magnificent; they fit her so perfectly. She is my height and carries a small black handbag with a novel just peering out of the top, a literary novel. She is not anxious to board the train. She is patient and waits for her moment and then when she moves it’s so effortless, so graceful…

I just know it’s her; it clicks in my head and in my heart.

So I approach her. The surroundings cease to exist. The world has gone; only she exists now. I am going toward her. I am going to speak to her.

I get close. My mouth feels like an attachment: a tool. A precise piece of equipment that I need to articulate. A net in which I can ensnare my girl. I think carefully about the words I will say. The way my lips move, the shape of my face.

I look into her eyes. Her deep green eyes. My mouth opens. I move it slowly and carefully and say those three words

Those three special words…

Those three most wonderful words…

“Excuse me please.”

She looks at me briefly through the corner of those eyes. She smiles politely and answers “sorry.”

She turns away, takes a step forward, moves onto the train and disappears. I look back. She has vanished into the crowd.

Two minutes later, and on time for once, a whistle blows and it pulls off. The train rumbles along its way back past Datchet and onto London and I never see her again.

I can’t help but feel a little cheated somehow.

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