C’est L’Amour

            Ilara Bonaparte

            The mall is a dangerous place the day before Christmas Eve.

            Large women with jewelery boxes tucked within their folds of fat stampeded around over-stressed women with skin stretched taut over old bones.  Little children ran wild as a frazzled mother screeched their names; clueless husbands meandered about without much purpose.  Cliques of teenagers pointed, laughed, and sneered without much sense to their madness.  An senile old man grappled with his grandson over who got to hold the stuffed animal for an absent sister.  Three nerdy boys with black oval-shaped glasses drooled over a JcPenny’s catalog in the corner of the food court, paying special attention to the lingerie section.  Two men walked slightly ahead of two women the same age, both groups whispering fervently and looking to the other group with annoyance.  A small child clutched a stuffed bear looking around hopefully, and a handicapped man ran over an older man’s foot. 

A lone young man gazed nostalgically into the wishing fountain he was seated next to.  His hands gripped a Coke can like it was mankind’s only hope, knuckles turning white as he crushed the empty container.  The metal molded around his hands as if it was silk, and every movement his hand made was part of an ethereal dance.  He tossed the can to the other hand, holding it closer to his face to study it.  His look of enthrallment encompassed every aspect of his body.  And a shrug preceded another toss, this time into the trashcan.  Within the space of four seconds, he enticed me, seduced me, and wanted me.  My heart began to pound, my hands to quiver.  In moments my intriguing demeanor was lost, my encompassing intelligence disappeared, and a second later any common sense I had vanished.

C’est l’amour…