Shaking Hands

Shaking hands. All I can think about is my shaking hands. I’ll drop it, just watch. Too delicate an object for my clumsy fingers. Slips from my fingers, rolls, spirals around the little hole in the bridge, and falls glistening all the way, into the depths of the creek.

No, I have to think of more important things. The words are so much more important. They are my tools of persuasion. The must be eloquent, convincing, and heartfelt. Easy enough to be felt but not an easy task to put them into words. I’d rehearsed them a million times. The words drilled themselves into my brain during the long, sleepless night. But somehow I can’t quite remember how they went. I’ll blubber and make an ass of myself. I’m not ready yet.

Too soon we reach the bridge; the bridge of firsts and memories. On the way home from our first date we stopped at this bridge; shared our first kiss. I was just about as jittery then as I am now. Damn my nerves. Felt like a teenager again, unsure of where to put my hands. So many of our dates ended with star-gazing on this bridge. Hot summer days we’d scramble down the embankment to dangle our feet in the creek. Sometimes she’d look so cute and innocent that I’d have to push her into the water, then let her pull me in too.

Now’s not the time for a trip down memory lane. A far more important task requires my attention. I try to go through my lines once more, but I’m distracted by her mouth and I kiss her instead. I’m on my knee; how did I get there? The ring is in hand; when did it stop shaking? I open my mouth, but the words won’t come out.

She rescues me with the sweetest word in the world, “Yes!”