my melancholy

i'll start this tale like most; with a single character. i'll make it a girl(duh!) and call her Lin.

Lin likes puzzles so much that she'll make them for others. ask her a secret and she'd willingly divulge it. the catch is, she'd turn it into a kind of riddle that you might as well give up trying to solve it.

one time, she was sitting on a bench. it doesn't matter where and what kind of bench it is -it's a bench. she was sitting there doing something when someone called out to her, "Lin-seed" -yeah, like the one used in oil-painting.

she was surprised to see him but at times expected so. sometimes he is there, sometimes he's not. that's why Lin often sits there to find that tiny chance.

he smilingly sat beside her. she, in turn, smiled back. it had been so long since they last sat side by side. like there's nowhere else to sit.

"long time no see," he broke the silence.
"yeah, why're you here anyway?" she said in a too-casual tone.
"the same reason you are."
"and how'd you know what my reason is?" she tell that he's answer would be, "co'z i'm psychic."
and so he did.
"that's because i'm psychic."

he likes giving her a hard time with his own kind of cryptic riddles. she could only guess what he's going to say - but it's harder to know if he meant what he said or not.

"so, what are you doing here?" he said.
"i thought you knew," she rebuked. but she answered nonetheless, "i'm waiting for a miracle to happen." those times she spent sitting on that bench gave her that ready answer.
"and what would that be?"
there was a brief pause.
"that a friend might decide to fall," she said almost in whispers.
and then another, much longer, pause.
"for you?" he said.
this was unexpected. Lin didn't answer.
"how'd you know that THAT hadn't happen yet?"
she raised her head to look at him without his usual impish grin, but found a solemn smile in its place.

puzzle solved.