The Laugh. Part One.

She wanted desperately to tell him a story. It would be a story so worth telling, it would be captivating and colourful, it would compel him to her. But when she opened her mouth, the words fell flat against his face. His honest gaze seemed to hone into her mind, reading the story faster than she could create it. She stumbled. His brow creased, his eyes looked beyond her. She could feel herself shrinking away. And then there was silence. Words simply failed to materialize in her mind. She lifted a hand to her mouth as if to hide the absence of chatter, averting her eyes from his at the same time. Then, like the sound of horses galloping in an old western movie, he began to laugh. His laugh came nearer to her heart than any other laugh had been before; she could hear kindess and deepness, calmness and clarity. She began laughing, too.

Hearing her own laugh echo in the street reminded her that she was alive. And she felt as if the laugh was familiar, yet not fully her own. Almost deja vu, but the kind of deja vu where you are experiencing yourself in a way you always knew was inside you, but you have never actually lived out until that moment. It was a sun rising quickly within, streaming through into her laugh. It was a pulling back of heavy drapes to let daylight permeate the room. It was blinding, and it took her off-guard.