An unusual love story

Nessa considers her lunch break at work as her own little quality time, an escape from her everyday chores.

She often leaves the office for a little stroll in the neighborhood, deeply breathing in the fresh air and hearing the birds singing around her in delight.

Or as today, to simply feel the sun on her face, while sitting on a bench and losing herself in a book.

While she is sitting there, an old lady comes to sit next to her. Nessa greets the lady, but is not really paying further attention to her as she is too busy reading.

After a while, when she looks up from her book, she sees the lady is gone. A thin folder has been left behind next to her on the bench. Nessa looks around to see if she can see the old lady, but she is nowhere to be found anymore.

A little curious, Nessa opens the folder. There is only one page inside: A picture of a man and, when she turns it around, she sees there is a riddle on the back.

The man in the picture is not faced towards the camera and although she can’t see his face, there is something about his profile that suddenly gives her a strange tingling sensation in her belly.

A sweet memory is warming her heart. A man of her past, having crossed her path once and left his print behind on her heart forever.

No, this couldn’t be him .. could it? And why did the old lady have a picture of him with her?

While she is wondering about this, she turns the page to look at the riddle on the back. And at that very same moment a brightly colored butterfly comes to sit on her hand.

Moved by the beauty of this simple creature, she looks at her hand and then again at the riddle. Every picture is the equivalent of a word, she notices, and in it’s whole it forms a sentence.

Accompanied by the little butterfly, she starts forming the words and quickly finds two:

YOU ....... .. .. ..... . ... HERE, .. ....

However, after a quick glance at her watch, she notices that she urgently needs to get up to make it back to the office in time. She jumps up and puts the picture back in the folder, using it as a bookmark between the pages of her book. The little butterfly flies away into the blue sky above her.

***

Being absorbed by her work, the whole afternoon, she doesn’t really think about the picture anymore.

However, wanting to continue her reading in the train on her way home, she is drawn to it again. Following the contours of the man’s profile with her finger, she can’t help but sinking back into her memories, dreaming of a man she once held in her arms ..

With every heartbeat, his image becomes more and more real before her spirits eye and she’s even remembering the very taste of his lips.

She turns the page around, wondering if she could resolve the rest of the puzzle.

YOU DESERVE TO BE ..... . . HERE, .. ....

When she looks up from the riddle, her heart skips a few beats. In front of her, a few meters down the aisle of the carriage she’s sitting in, she is staring at the back of a man who seems strangely familiar to her. The man of the picture? The man she has been longing for all this time?

Doubting herself, as she often does, she is too afraid to shout out his name, thinking it can’t be, that this must be someone else. Probably just someone remotely looking like the man haunting her memory so vividly at the moment.

She closes her eyes for a minute to see the face again of which she now can vision every detail..

When she looks up, the man seems to be gone and she sees she has almost arrived at her destination.

While gathering her things, she feels a sweet sensation in the back of her neck, almost like someone is stroking their lips against her neck in a gentle kiss... But nobody is there.

Nessa sighs in unmet desire: “Would she ever feel love like this again?”

She gets out of the train, continuing her journey towards home. She is still holding the picture in her hand with the riddle facing her. Wanting to put it back in the folder, she turns it around again.

In shock she sees the front of the page is blank ..

Startled by this discovery, she drops it on the floor. As she leans in to pick it up, the side of the page holding the riddle is facing up again. She discovers that the words have been completed.

YOU DESERVE TO BE LOVED. I’M HERE, LOVE. She can’t believe her eyes.

She straightens her back in confusion and while doing so, she notices a shadow at the very edge of her vision. She blinks her eyes.

Sitting on the bench outside the curb she is walking on, there he is. She’s suddenly sure her eyes aren’t fooling her. It’s really him! He’s real! The man of her dreams. Her man. Her long lost love!

“I’m here for you. Come with me.”, he whispers, as he pulls her into his arms.

***

An old lady is walking towards a bench to have a little rest after her daily walk.

While she sits down, she notices the picture lying on the bench. It’s showing a beautiful image of two people in an intense embrace.

Two brightly colored butterflies come to sit in her lap. The old lady smiles.