Old longing.

A soft, old man, with a prickled chin that sticks out like a crescent moon, green twinkling eyes, a whisper of a voice, across from an old woman, red lipstick, a plain hardness about her. I don’t know their story, but to me they are lovers from long lost years, and they met again, here, in front of my eyes. It is the way he asks for the bill and she wipes her hands over nothing, attempts to pay herself, while he says nothing, just quietly holds that twinkle in his eyes.

He loves her.

She watches his hands press buttons on the machine, her old eyes flick upwards to his face, and back down to his hands. There is a special, private sparkle in her eyes too. She presses back a smile before returning to her plain, hard, nothing.

She loves him.

I walked away and decided they had parted ways. They didn’t kiss, they didn’t touch hands, they only held each other's shoulders in a polite, quick hug, but he gifted her youthful nervousness with the weight of a knowing stare, the familiar grip of his green eyes, the quietness of him. He was always so quiet.

They said goodbye and returned to the lives they had made instead, wondering.

She put a tender hand of thin white, against her heart, and thought what if.

He walked the same path he’d walked for the last 30 years of his life and thought, I can’t believe she came.