First Meeting
Originally published on September 14th, 2012 by Dimitri Bouniol. #FNADNST
The girl was sitting in the fast moving train, wondering how much longer the trip would take.
Just 30 minutes prior, she had been frantically getting ready, as not to miss the train before it left.
It was weird for her — she had just been in this country, not even a week long, not having met anyone so far.
And yet, she was traveling so far just to meet someone whom she never met in person before.
She had no clue what to expect, was he nice, was he careless, was he cool? She knew very little about him.
They had met online just a few days ago, and he suggested that they meet since they didn't live too far from each other,
so it was natural for her to feel a little anxious regarding this situation.
And thus she waited on the train, paying extra attention to every stop that was announced.
She had quite some difficulty understanding what the announcer was saying…
in fact, she couldn't understand it at all. She knew which stop she had to take, but she was too nervous to try to ask someone for help.
She wasn't nervous about her own ability to speak — in fact, she knew she couldn't speak well, but having been to a foreign country before, she knew she just had to try and speak.
People would understand her, that was not the problem.
But she was worried she wouldn't understand them, and asking them to further explain things to her would just cause them trouble.
So she held back, and patiently waited in the seat by the window, hoping she would recognize the stop.
To her surprise, an elderly woman came up to her and directly asked her something.
"Uh…" the girl stuttered, not knowing what the woman said, nor how to respond.
The woman continued rather quickly. It seemed like she was also trying to get somewhere, but how the girl could assist her, she did not know.
All she could do while the woman rambled on was to slowly nod her head in agreement, of course with a nervous stutter.
The boy waited patiently at the train stop.
In a bout of nervousness for this day, he had woken up much earlier than he was accustomed to.
When he met a girl on an online forum, he was truly having the worst of luck in life.
Of course, the boy didn't think relying on such foolish things such as luck was a worthy waste of his life, so when he met this girl, and found out she had just moved here, he didn't want to hesitate.
Not wanting to hesitate, and not hesitating, are, as it turns out, two very different things, and the boy truly was nervous.
But the more he learned about her, the more he wanted to throw his old life away and start anew.
It seemed like the girl was from the same country the boy was deeply interested in.
He himself lived there for a while, and though he could not speak nearly as fluently as she could, he was confident in his ability to explain things with what he had.
And so he decided that he wanted to meet her — he summed up all his courage into an invitation to a place not far from where he lived, and suggested to meet there.
To his surprise, the girl quickly responded with a smile, and simply asked when they should go.
He thus proposed to bring some home made sandwiches from his parents home town for lunch, to which the girl gave an excited response.
But in his excitement, he had woken up way too early, and left much before their meeting time.
He didn't want to be late, after all, but considering the girl was not from here, and hardly spoke the language, he thought meeting her half way at a big stop would be best.
And so he arrived, just a couple hours early on this beautiful day, and spent the time just staring at the clouds pass over above the trees.
However, this may have been his greatest mistake, being early that is.
He was surrounded with thoughts that she might not come, or that she misunderstood the meeting spot.
This left him as a nervous wreck, so he tried contacting her, letting her know that he was just leaving.
That is, even though he had already arrived.
As the minutes ticked by, and no response came, he just decided to wait until the meeting time, and if she did not come, he would simply return home.
He thought to himself that luck might actually exist, and he was truly out of it.
He thought that if that was the case, he had probably burned through it all by finding countless four leaf clovers during the past year.
And so the hours past by, and it was finally the meeting time. The sun had already risen high into the sky, and the weather got a little hot,
so the boy decided it was maybe time to go home and give up.
He, of course, did not know that the girl was on her way.
That she was late because she was busy preparing herself so the boy might take interest in her.
And suddenly, as the boy was ready to mount the bus that went back home, his phone let out a small sound, and on it was a message indicating that the girl was going to be a little late, but that she would be arriving in 10 minutes.
The message was cutely ended with a smiley he had never seen before, but that had immediately made him think of the word "cute".
and so he returned to train landing and patiently waited.
Just as ten minutes passed, a train started arriving.
The timing was almost perfect, and and he watched it coming to a stop, he quickly sprang up.
He quickly skinned all the faces, making sure not to miss any.
And just as fast as it came, the train started to depart.
He continued to scan for people, but after just a few seconds, all he could see was an elderly woman that seemed to be waiting for someone.
It seemed to the boy that the girl did not come, and as saddened as he was, he felt he could at least offer the elderly woman one of his sandwiches before he headed back home.
The girl finally heard a stop that sounded familiar.
She had been busy listening to this loudmouth woman continuing nonstop, as if she were a broken record.
So when she heard the stop, she was truly happy.
She had been afraid she missed it, so when she took out her phone to notify the boy that she had almost arrived, she was not surprised to see that the meeting time had been nearly half an hour ago.
Hoping he did not yet leave, she hurriedly typed out a message to tell him she was almost there.
Had she been at home, she would have just called her friends directly, but being in a different country, she could understand people even less over the phone.
Somewhat rapidly, the 10 minutes she spent waiting seemingly vanished, and the train began to grind to a halt.
She hurried off the train quickly moving her head, trying to spot a waiting person.
All she had to work off, after all, was a single picture the boy had sent her so she would know what to look for.
She wanted to send one back, but felt too embarrassed, and regretted it at this moment, since the boy would not be able to spot her himself.
That is, if the boy were still here.
She truly hoped he was, and after a moment there was suddenly very little people left at the station.
The was an elderly person at the opposite track, and a young lad that looked like he might be her grandson, picking her up.
That was it.
She hurriedly got out her phone, and typed a message indicating she had arrived, almost in an act of desperation.
As the boy approached the old woman, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
He stopped to read the message, and upon doing so, quickly dialed the number.
The sweet voice on the other end said hello, but not in the language he was expecting, so he was unable to respond right away.
After a second hello, this time a little more questionable, he mustered up his thoughts and said hello back.
The girl had wandered a little bit along the platform when her phone suddenly rang.
Since she had been building up all this tension and nervousness, she quickly greeted the other party in her native language.
She thought that she was so careless to have done so - what if he had thought he dialed the wrong number and had hung up?
Upon hearing silence, she greeted again.
But this time, she got a response, but not in the language she had been texting earlier, but in the language she responded to the phone with.
He quickly asked where she was.
Of course, she was just as nervous as he was, so she didn't notice the hesitation in his voice.
In fact, she freaked out a little, and responded in yet another language
Upon hearing her stutter, the boy giggled.
He had heard the railroad crossing on the other line, and quickly termed around to see a girl spinning around sporadically with a phone in her left hand.
Upon seeing this spectacle, the same word crept into his mind: "cute".
She was just a new inches shorter than him, had shoulder length hair, and clearly had a sense of style.
"Cute" was quickly replayed by "pretty", only to be further replaced by simply beautiful.
In fact, he was so distracted watching his girl, he didn't notice the other line checking back if he was still there.
He quickly hung up the phone, and ran over to where the girl was standing, looking utterly confused.
The girl was a little upset that she had been hung up on, but she quickly heard a call from behind her.
She turned around to see the same young man from before, this time with a huge smile across his face.
He was running towards her, so re responded with a smile of her own and waved her hand up high.
He was just a few inches taller than her, and with his shorts and T-shirt, looked like a true native of this country.
Unlike her, who had decided to wear a cute petit black dress, he seemed perfectly prepared for today's hot weather.
Not to mention he didn't bail on her, and his smile gave an impression of kindness and understanding.
They both ended up face to face for a little over a minute, simply gazing upon each other without saying a word.
The boy timidly mustered up his courage, and simply said: "Shall we go?", with what the girl was as a beautifully confident smile.
And with that smile, all her expectations and fears simply melted away.
THE END
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