25 September 2012
Something happened to me today. I met a stranger on the street and for a split second our eyes met. It happens often enough, you meet someone’s gaze and you both quickly avert your eyes, as if ashamed by that moment of contact with another human. And that’s exactly what we did. But something happened. In the split second (less than that even) that our eyes met we didn’t just look, we saw. I saw him and he saw me. It felt as though his gaze had reached down and touched something deep within me—I can still feel it there now. I can’t explain it because I’ve never felt that kind of connection with a complete stranger before. I had never met him before, and I think it is very important that I never meet him again.
I’ll try to hold onto this feeling, that split-second connection, but eventually I will forget. Maybe one day when I’m old and alone the feeling will come back in a rush from the past in the way that memories sometimes do. And then I’ll remember those blue eyes.
Stranger • Opuss № I