More of the reel life

Of all the women he'd met, why did he have to go and fall in love with someone who was moving away someplace half-way across the globe? And neither had she thought that she'd meet 'that someone special' just 2 months before she was set to leave.

And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have the seeds of another one of the series of reel-life events that we are by now so familiar with. I am beginning to have this sneaking suspicion that I am not a real person. I must be part of a movie plot. Now how would a fictional character know that he is, ahem, fictional? But such deep questions make us digress from the plot.

Typical movie like whirlwind romance with wine, candles and dancing and cab rides back home late in the night. A discovery that the romance works even when both of them were stone cold sober that sobered them up even more. Wonder about where this was supposed to lead. Would it fade away and die a slow death after she moves away? By the day before she is set to leave, they are so desperate to have more time together that he decides to take a flight around the same time so that they'll have time together after she checks in baggage. All through the past weeks, both of them have been surprised by how much they want this to last - and to what lengths they are willing to go to try bridge the distance. On an aside, I am totally against desperate attempts to bridge a mental distance. But a physical distance - now, that is entirely different.

He tells her of his wonderful plan for them to have some more time at the airport and she is thrilled. Late in the night, they try coordinate their arrivals. For once, he is the one who is late. Really late. Late when it counted for him to be there on time. But oh, we still don't know why it matttered so much. Not yet. Forgive me for running ahead of the narrative thread. He gets there and finds that his flight is from a different terminal. And worse still, the terminals aren't connected! How about buying a visitor pass and getting into her terminal? Thanks to terrorist threats, they aren't allowing visitors. Quick call to her. She is almost at the head of a really long queue at the entrance to her terminal. With three huge suitcases, she needs to keep her place if she wants to be on that flight. He runs to the other terminal, strolley bouncing behind him, cigarette ash falling into the puddles left by the drizzle that has gone on all evening. He looks around, but can't spot her. She is about to enter the terminal. She is gone. And he didn't even get to say a proper Good Bye.

Sitting in the lounge he wonders about all the things he should have done differently. How he should at least have told her all that he wanted to say. Not counting on having another two hours which, as it turns out, he hadn't. His phone rings. She has exactly two coins that she's begged off someone. They make plans and say Good Bye. The phone beeps signalling that it needs another coin - that she doesn't have. He looks at the phone and wonders why they didn't plan this any better! How they should have checked about the terminals. How he should have made sure she was carrying enough change. But anyway, at least they got to say good bye. For now. Till they meet again. Though it seems interminably long, time does go by.

Even though she is wrapped up in a busy schedule and trying to cope with all that it takes to cope with a new country, a new school and new friends (or lack of them) she keeps missing him. And both of them are pleasantly surprised at how little difference distance has made to their feelings for each other. Could this be headed for a happy movie ending? I am a sucker for good endings.

ubergeek, the