Falafel Distractions

Falafel Distractions  
  
    A burgundy sparkle is reflected in her dark eyes. Their lives are adrift in this culinary moment. They find solace in falafel distractions. Tofu sautéed in soy sauce provides the deception that it has a flavor of its own. Slippery words spill across the table to stain the empty canvas of their virginal encounter. First impression mirages glimmer across the linen tablecloth ocean. In the distance, a foghorn tells them they are too close to the shore and in danger of being shipwrecked. But they hold onto the ritual of dating like capsized sailors on life preservers.  
     “Dan, you look self-absorbed tonight. Are those islands of thought more fascinating than me?”  
     “Rose, that’s like comparing apples and oranges. Contemplation fulfills an intellectual need. You are the elixir of my life. Your beauty blesses this restaurant like no train of thought could.”  
     “So I am window dressing? I’d like to think our love is more profound than me being an art piece you gaze at when lonely.”  
     Dan sets sail across her cryptic sea. Lost in Sargasso silence her face mimes emotions. Their reticent gestures ebb into the quiet of a monastic reverie. The clink of wine glasses and murmurs of diners accentuate their silence. In this exotic quiet the only mercy found is the food they devour like vultures dining on the remains of a moment.  
     “There you go again drifting on your personal floating nation of the mind. But you didn’t answer my question.”  
     “Art provides a profound experience no less deep or meaningful than the gold at the end of my book inspired meditations. It is just different. You are a vision of Pre-Raphaelite loveliness my love. In no way are you diminished by being compared to art.”  
     “I wish I could be more than your female stereotype. I am intellectual too. I’ve read books. Can’t we connect on some other level than that of art piece and patron?”  
     “My Lady of Shalott books pale in importance when compared to you. Your place in my life is more than that of a painting hung on the wall. You are a living breathing embodiment of all that is virtuous and good in life. Your being is the only truth I need to know. You are the alpha and the  omega.”  
     “Dan I’ll be honest I see beauty in your words. However, I don’t live in the world you do. I want so badly to be part of your life. However, your abstractions elude me. Please try to talk to me of love in a clear way. I love it when you make me smile. I miss that.”  
     “You make Paris Hilton look like a tramp.”  
     “That’s what I mean. Sort of.”  
     Her lotus flower, concealed beneath her skirt folds, blossoms in secret. Her furtive felicity is divulged in a devilish smile with her covert operation declassified. Her lips flutter in an exhalation of coquetry on the verge of fortissimo. His inner-directed eyes look outward into her oceanic eyes.  
     “Rose, you have an uncanny ability to get high from my babbling. There is nothing more I could ever want from a woman.”  
     “Oh Dan, let’s build an Ark to carry all our hopes and dreams to dry land.”