There were several Turkish delights left in my lunchbox while I was waiting for the bus. With my right hand, I lifted my umbrella, feeling a slight unbalance as the rain stretched down in long patterns, crying street-wide, pouring itself to every place left uncovered and vulnerable. It manipulated the weight of my umbrella with thrash after thrash of its constant downfall. In my head, I was reciting a long speech about another philosophical Frenchman, simultaneously careful not to spill the sweets on my lap.

I found myself distracted after a while though, rainfall burning into my ears, creating abstractions that danced from man to woman, to heart and soul.

As I reached down, feeling the fine of the sugar with my fingers, and then looking up to check for the bus as the delight fell as a shower of sweet into my mouth, I saw a rather tall girl running towards me, with a black cascade of straight, wet hair, tight under a white waterproof hood, with a strange spring of an accustomed smile — looking at me.

I made an unintelligible sound meaning simply What the hell? as I gaped with the candy still unswallowed in my mouth, and I kept looking at her, eyes and hair and jacket.

Then she stopped right in front of me, pausing for a second to catch her breath, still standing in front of the rain.

“Who the hell still has lunchboxes in college?”

“Um.” I utter, swallowing the candy.

Then, somehow, she managed to smile wider than she had already, and sat next to me, under my large umbrella.

So we sat, I holding strong a shield against the downpour, legs tight as to make sure not to get my treats wet, and her taking her hood off to release her disheveled hair and reaching greedily for the one of two candies left, without uttering a single other word.

A couple minutes passed us by when I finally had some faith to break the silence. “So, nice to meet you…” I say slowly, “…I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in my entire life.”

“Whaat?” She says with some hint of disappointment, turning to me with a smile that could never be overdone. “Remember when we were in elementary and you kept giving me roasted seaweed with considerable regret since I never said ‘Thank you’? Hm. No? Well what about the time when I accidently hit you in the balls?” Then she started laughing. “Well I suppose I never really apologized… for that either…”

Then, she paused, with a look of supposed horror in her eyes, looking discontented as she put her palm under her face, until laughing again! “I’m just kidding. Really.” Then she stops once more, unable to speak under the spell of laughter, “Did you see your face? Wuttt???”

“Yeah” she continued, “I don’t really know you at all. Wasn’t that interesting though?” She says, stretching her arms wide, fingertips just daring the touch of the water. “Interesting than everything you’ve done in so many years?

“Uh, yeah this is pretty weird. Really, really weird.”

“Refreshing though, isn’t it? Hell… you looked so confused — you still do!”

“Yeah, well I kinda have to do prepare for a presentation right now.”