Today while I was walking at lunchtime, I passed the open market. It was bustling, as usual, with all the typical kinds of people who go to the market. People shopping diligently. People browsing. People studying bok choy. People chatting with their neighbors or the vendors. Just people.

And then I saw you.

And I stopped. I guess I stopped. Several minutes later I realized I was standing in the same spot while the town flowed past me. I believe I wasn't breathing, but my heart must have thought I was running down the street. Or maybe that the world was ending. I was still seeing you. While you couldn't see me. Oh, what a precious time to observe someone, when that someone isn't aware of being observed. The true colors.

You smiled at the old woman behind the rice counter. I imagined you to be charming her. I dreamed I could hear your voice telling her she looked "ten years younger than last week." And smiling again, just for a second. Did she know that smile could turn worlds upside down? One, at least. Did she long to reach over and with her fingertips touch your neck just below your ear?

I couldn't move from the spot I was planted in on the sidewalk. Or wouldn't. The vision I was seeing was too...splendid. Every molecule that makes up me was arrested. A totally focused psyche. Fascination street.

You took your aura to the next stall. I don't even remember now which one it was. But I remember you. Every little twitch. The tiniest of movements. I carved all the smallest details on a wooden door, a big door, in my head. And I remember you laughing at something the guy (?) told you. That sound was in my head too. Even though I couldn't really hear it. Lost in the echoes.

You bought something, it doesn't matter what, and I spotted your watch on your wrist. The black leather wrapped around your flesh. Just so high up your arm. The gold on the face made a quick glint in the sunlight, just for a second. Even that simplicity moved me erotically. And I'd rather smell your skin than the leather.

I imagined being close enough to smell your scent, close enough to breathe the same air that you're breathing. It was too much for the hot sidewalk. I got that tumbling-down feeling in my stomach. Continuous fluttering that maybe I can't gain control of.

Then you were browsing and sampling. So undisturbed. So complacent. While I was anything but.

Who are you? Why have I never seen anything like you before? How is it you can hold such an undeniable power over me when none of these other people around us can barely attract my attention? Might you disappear at any moment? Could this minute in time go on just forever? Could I just freeze all of this right here and live it into infinity? Otherwise, how could I ever have enough time to express this what is inside me?

I recite in my head that maybe this is how we know when we've found our mates, our companions for life. That missing other half that Aristotle or Plato wrote about. We want not only to live out our lives with them, but also to die with them. I was thinking this outside the market, at lunchtime. While you, totally unaware of me, bought something else and started to leave.

And then I got control of myself and turned to walk the other way. I said, again to myself: the magic is still with us, and not losing strength but gaining it. As I looked down at your ring on my finger, I felt the fluttering again, internal trembling, and this rushed through my head, right up to the big door with all of you carved into it: after all these years, and I can still lose myself just at the sight of you.