Daina - Pt. 1
I couldn’t tell you the first moment I saw her - but I could tell you the first moment I noticed her.
I was walking back to my office at the end of lunch, and I was sort of absorbed in what I was working on. About 10m from my door on the right I realised someone was standing there, outside the office door across the corridor waiting. I looked up, and there was that face… looking right at me… looking through me. She had no expression, her face was blank… it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. She didn’t smile…. or frown… just looked. Those green eyes… looking right at me.
My gaze was frozen for what seemed like 30 seconds… although at best it would have been only two. Who was she?. I quickly looked away, and turned right into my office, and sat down at my desk. My heart was pounding, and my legs were shaking. I picked up a pen and tried to write… but couldn’t… as the adrenalin pumped through my veins. Who was she? Why did she look at me like that? Had she mistaken me for someone else? Did she want something? Then why didn’t she say anything? Why did she just… stare?
A couple of days went by, and I sort of forgot the whole thing. I really had no idea what came over me, and was actually pretty embarrassed for myself. Then it happened again. I was standing by the urn, pouring out some boiling water for my cup of Earl Grey tea. I turned to walk away… and there she was… standing right next to me with her mug… just looking. I locked eyes with her again, and I opened my mouth… but nothing happened. I was unable to form a single word… I could hardly breathe…. and then I felt my legs start to give way again. I looked awkwardly at the floor, then dashed off toward the table with my smoko buddies… and sat down. I jiggled my knee, I twitched, I sipped my tea… and didn’t dare look up.
What the hell was wrong with me? What was this all about? This just didn’t happen to me. I didn’t want to think about what this might have been the start of. It felt like I was back in high school for christ sake.
Weeks went by, and on and off I would catch glimpses of her - going in to her lab, coming out of the tea room, or heading off to run a tute or a prac for the third years. It was always her hair I saw first - sandy coloured, and draped over her shoulders - and never tied back. But I rarely saw her head on, that was until one day in January.
I was at the lunchtime desk with friends, and I was absorbed in conversation when someone put a lunchbox and some keys on the edge of the table. I momentarily looked up… to see her at the urn pouring a cup of tea. I looked around the table in a panic… and saw just one vacant seat… directly opposite me. I simply couldn’t look. I picked up my paper, and pretended to be absorbed… and tried not to think of what might happen if she sat down with us. A moment later I heard her cup go “bonk” on the table, and Andrew spoke to her.
“How’s it going Daina?”
“Good” she replied.
This was the first word I ever heard her say. Good. All at once, I heard the timbre of her voice, the tone and the weight. That one word sounded absolutely beautiful. I wanted more.
A few others at the table greeted her, and now I knew her name - Daina. I realised I’d heard it before, I just didn’t know who they were talking about. They all carried on chatting, and I tried to regain some of my composure. My hands still shook as I tried to read the paper, but I gradually settled down. I pretended to read… but I was listening for the gaps in the conversation her soft voice might fill.
I didn’t hear the question, but I heard her reply… something about a flat… and how none she’d seen were that good. Andrew asked her if she was checking the paper regularly, and she said she always forgot to buy one. And then it came.
“What about <insert my real name here>? He always buys a paper!”
I looked up, and they were both looking across the table at me, expectantly. I played dumb, despite knowing exactly what was coming next. There were those eyes again, looking right at me. Green eyes, with thin sandy brows above them, and long lashes circling them. But this time I could not escape.
“Can Daina borrow your paper?” Andrew asked.
“Uhhh… sure…” I replied with all the nonchalance I could muster, and I folded it in half and reached across the desk to hand it to her. She stretched out her arm, with a bracelet wrapped around a dainty wrist - and took the paper from me. Now I couldn’t even hide behind my paper and pretend she wasn’t there. She was holding something, something of mine, something that she would hand back to me. I lingered on that thought.
Just then Mr Blonde wandered in, and came up behind me. “Hey <insert my real name here>, sorry to bug you at lunch”
“Wassup?” I ask.
“Having a weird thing with my rig. Wanna come down for a look after lunch? It’s just that I don’t know how long it will do it for” he said.
“Sure… hey, I’m done anyway… let’s go!”.
And with that I got up, and trundled off to the labs downstairs where the scientists ran their experiments.
A couple of hours later, I returned to my office, after being fully absorbed in problem solving and fault finding. I put my keys down on my desk - and then saw the paper folded neatly, and placed on my seat. Just then Robert called to me from the other side of the office.
“Some girl was here for you”, he said.
“Oh…. right”, I said, non-committally. I knew it was her.
“She brought your paper back”, he added. “She left it on your desk, I think”.
“Thanks, Robert”.
And I picked up the paper, and unfolded it. I opened it up, and I found the rental page. Suddenly I noticed there were doodles drawn all over it in black pen. Little swirls, and triangles, arrows, clouds… and concentric patterns. They were all over the page, all around the edge where there was no print. I stared, and marveled at the intricacy of it - the complexity of it - like a spider’s web.
I knew it was her work.
(… to be continued)
Warning… dull post ahead