Just a Moment

    I'm on a bus again. Of course I am. I don't even have a destination anymore. I used to go to the park or the museum, but now it's the ever changing landscape that brings a kind of peace to my soul.
 
    I hear the rain hit the windows, and I smile. I always loved the rain. As a child I used to wake up and look out my window before school. Most children hope for fluffy clouds and sun shine; I prayed for the tears of dark clouds. There was a connection I felt to the gloom.

    There's a pretty girl in the seat across from me in a red sun dress. The bright red was a solid pop of color in an otherwise grey world. Even the girl with her pale skin and long, raven hair seemed just a canvas for this splash of color.

  She sees me looking at her, and I panic. What should I do? Say ,"Hello."? How ridiculous the concept even is! One simply does not just say hello to a canvas, especially a beautiful canvas such as this!

  Moments like this seem to last forever. That awkward moment between strangers when they lock eyes, unsure of the social protocol of how to proceed. How long do you lock eyes? What do you say? Who should look away first? What if you say the wrong thing? Much worse, what if you don't say something, and this is your only chance to say anything?

    She looks down, and like that, the moment is gone. I feel both the relief of obligation and the sinking heart that accompanies missed opportunities.

    It is in the moment after the missed moment that you realize all it takes is just a moment to change a life.

  I feel the bus stop. Suddenly I'm frozen. All I can do is watch her stand up to leave. The red sun dress waving as though it were leaves caught in an autumn wind. My heart beat accelerates. This is my last chance.

  "You wear the dress as if it were a painting!" I blurt out.
 
  Stupid.

  She turns to look at me, " Well I made it. So I guess that makes me a painter."

    She spoke with a laugh like angles' harps and a smile that might as well have been the sun. Right then within that moment while the rest of the grey world was drenched in rain I had the the colors of fall and warmth of the summer's sun. Then she was gone, and so was the sun. I'd never missed the sun before. In that moment I realized all we have are moments, and in that moment I had autumn.