textfiles/magazines/HOE/hoe-0490.txt

 '##::::'##:::'#####:::'########: VIVA LA REVOLUCION! CERDO DEL CAPITALISTA!!
  ##:::: ##::'##.. ##:: ##.....:: ===========================================
  ##:::: ##:'##:::: ##: ##::::::: THE HELOTS OF ECSTASY PRESS RELEASE #490 !!
  #########: ##:::: ##: ######::: ZIEGO VUANTAR SHALL BE MUCH VICTORIOUS!  !!
  ##.... ##: ##:::: ##: ##...:::: ===========================================
  ##:::: ##:. ##:: ##:: ##::::::: "I Fell in Love Today"                   !!
  ##:::: ##::. #####::: ########: by -> Quarex                             !!
 ..:::::..::::.....::::........:: 2/10/99                                  !!
 !!========================================================================!!

        Was she even real?  I honestly cannot even tell you.  But before I
 get ahead of myself, I suppose I should start from the beginning.  This
 is not some kind of metaphoric romp through the playground of my mind,
 this is the honest-to-me truth.  There was a two hour break between my
 first and second classes, thus I decided I needed to do something
 reasonably constructive with my time, as it takes me a half hour to walk
 to my apartment.

        I sat down on a cold stone bench outside U of I's English building,
 and prepared to finish reading a reasonably bland Forster novel.  By
 finish reading, I mean get from page 7, where I was, to the end of the
 book.  I went along at a fairly good pace, enjoying the light breeze and
 the extremely cold weather, even if it was cold enough for me to wear a
 jacket.  After some amount of time, I noticed a figure walking towards my
 bench.  Based on the style of black jeans and the platform-ish shoes the
 person wore, I fathomed it was a girl.

        Still, I paid her little heed, and continued reading.  It is not
 like seeing a girl walking near you on a campus of 30,000 is that strange
 of a thing.  She sat down, however, not on the other empty stone bench,
 as is a common act, but rather right next to me on my bench, even though
 there was barely enough room for a person to sit next to my coat and
 backpack.

        And still, I gave her little regard, as it is hardly the first
 time a girl has come up and sat next to me when there were other seats
 available.  I never question their motives, after all.  After a few
 minutes, she began smoking.  I normally abhor smoke, naturally, and so I
 instantly assumed my serene bookreading was going to get worse.  However,
 through some beautiful turn of events, her smoke did exactly the opposite.
 It almost put me at ease, somehow.  I could not help but smile all the
 while she was smoking.

        I was not going to stop reading my book, however, as I had to
 finish it by my next class.  I did glance at her more than a few times,
 never being rewarded with anything more than the vision of her lovely
 ashen-reddish hair, and once or twice the tip of her nose.  If she had
 ever turned my way, even for a split second, I would have taken the
 initiative and spoken with her.  Once her cigarette was finished, she
 continued sitting on the bench, staring off to the left at some object no
 doubt completely obscured from my view.  The longer she sat there, the
 more profoundly the sun affected me, and the more competely wonderful I
 felt.  I took off my coat at some point, since I felt warmer than I had
 been in ages.  Yet still I read.  A tale of a beautiful upper-class
 Englishwoman who shirks her traditional lifestyle for the chance to marry
 a man in Italy.  A tale of a chance encounter turned into an unbelievable,
 even if brief, romance.  Where is the sense in all this?  Am I dreaming?
 Did I forget to wake up this morning?

        And so it went on, I unable to do anything but sit and read, and
 she apparently completely focused on something over there.  Over there,
 just on the other side of Wright street.  This is Wright street we are
 talking about here.  There is nothing fascinating on the corner of Wright
 and Fifth.  What is she looking at?  I still have to read.  Then, the
 batteries in my CD player died.  They should have been fresh.  They had
 no reason to die on me.  In almost immediate retrospect from the event, I
 should have talked to her.  Did I?  No.  Shortly thereafter, she got up,
 never looking towards me, and walked away.  She went down the sidewalk,
 her ashen-reddish hair flowing in the breeze as she went, and crossed
 Wright street.  I saw her half-way across the street, then a van briefly
 obscured my view of her.  As soon as the van was no longer obscuring my
 view, I realized there was nothing to obscure.  She was gone.  Yet, it
 seemed as though nothing could have moved out of the way that quickly.
 She could not have made it behind a building or onto the next street in
 that two second period.  She could not.  And I had no idea what to think.

        It got slightly colder just then, though the sun was still
 impressively warm for that time of day.  And I went back to reading.

        Maybe I messed up.  Maybe I did exactly what I was supposed to do.
 Maybe I really did just imagine the whole thing, I just hope not.  I went
 back to my apartment, feeling perhaps more worldly than before, or at the
 very least a bit happier.  I summed up the day to my first roommate to
 appear with a few simple statements.  "I listened to track seven on this
 CD for two hours, got some plasti-tak for our posters, and tried to pick
 up my other English 300 book.  Oh, and I fell in Love today."

 !!========================================================================!!
 !! (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS!   HOE #490, WRITTEN BY: QUAREX - 2/10/99 !!