She leaned backward and slid down on her chair, stretching her legs beneath the table. She seemed terribly bored by the whole situation. I felt tremendous sympathy for her at this point, to the extend that I sympathized with her boredom, although I was probably myself the cause of it. I loved her mocking silence, her cold lack of response, her aloof desire to leave, her complete rejection of all who had gathered around her. What kept me from stopping my outpooring of petty thoughts, my rambling was that this probably would have bored her to an even greater extent.

I don’t even now if she blamed me specifically for the ridiculous situation that had arisen around her. I knew she liked me, well at least there was no doubt in my mind she did, she might even have loved me at that point. Although, I seriously doubt any reasons she had found for liking me. You see, I was awkwardly ordinary. It is perhaps hard for anyone who knows me to understand the depth of my ordinariness, but I always have been essentially boring, and whatever likable or entertaining nature I am able to display is terribly deceiving. She might have just liked me out of boredom, I mean, she might have found the absoluteness of boringness interesting, in the sense that someone who fears death can be fascinated by it for that very reason. This at least is the most causable explanation I can give for her behavior that evening.

M wasn’t paying attention to me either, although he had made sure to stay in my company from early on that night. He seemed to be intensely introverted at that point, or perhaps deeply distracted, disturbed perhaps by what he had gotten involved in, but he was completely occupied by his attempt to hide this anxiety. Perhaps he hated me, perhaps he had forgotten about me. Nor did I intend to interrupt his introverted state, nor did I intend to entertain him or her for her sake.

So I continued my own rambling, until in the middle of a certain thought, I even forgot the thought itself, M seemed to no longer be able to control himself and keep his thoughts to his own. He turned his head toward us, I briefly caught his attention, then his eyes distressed and his shoulders protruded. In an irritated manner he said: “I think they forgot us. perhaps we should go somewhere else. There is a spanish toco just across the street.”

The absurdity of his interruption dissolved in his agitated voice. She responded with a quick wit, which showed disdain for all of us without being aimed at anyone specifically. And for the first time that evening, she smiled with such deep and sincere beauty, that I remained quiet for the first time, leaving me without words and I admired her for that short smile, as I never did at any point in my life. She immediately fell back in her pose of aloof boredom, as if she had noticed her conquest and was satisfied my tribute.