A Child's Love

“One, two, three, four, five, six, nine and ten
Money can’t buy you back the love that you had then.”
-Leslie Feist

Young and full of spirit, the freshman was always keen to savour each and every word uttered in un inglese molto italiano by his POL 210 professor; he even found reason to jot down inspired notes. Despite his inexperience, he knew he’d seldom bear witness to such lucid oratory on political theory as his professor’s, and the ovation the class offered him at the end of this (and every other) lecture was a testament to this. After collecting his pen and notebook, he began to make his way out of the row of wooden seats, but he was stopped immediately in his tracks by a vision that stood in the way of his glance at the exit. Soaked by a midmorning stream of autumn sunshine pouring through the lecture hall’s magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows, a golden Nene delicately turned her neck towards him. Although flustered while concocting her own laborious egress from the lecture hall, she radiated an exotic kind of American beauty. The moment their eyes met, the brief sense of cosmic alignment, gave him a colorful memory that he would hold on to. Years hence, he’d wonder if the siren of fate had sung back then.