Alas! A Lass Under the Bright Summer Sun

When I was a very young man, there was a young woman who attended the same church as I did. She seemed taller than she actually was. Her posture and carriage made her tall or at least higher than the other young women. She always wore pretty dresses and long hair and moved with the grace of a model. She didn't seem to walk so much as glide. I would say I had a crush on her, but I felt that she was so far above my station that I didn't feel the right to have a crush on her. I don't recall ever having the courage to speak to her. I admired her at a distance.

One very bright and sunny morning I found myself at an event where, by the fates, I was obligated to sit next to her. I tried to talk to her and be wise and witty, but mostly found I couldn't bring myself to look at her. I remember nothing of the conversation, but I remember feeling smaller and smaller and a sweat breaking out across my forehead. At last, I felt that I couldn't politely continue to carry on a conversation with her without looking in her direction. So I did. I fully expected a vision of heaven upon earth.  The sun shone full in her face, a blush of heat growing upon her cheeks, and a brown mustache lit up like the Vegas strip, sordid and mundane.

I turned away, wishing that I had never looked, that she would always have remained the faultless angel seen from afar as through a rose-coloured and hairless glass. If only I could shave that hairy lip from my brain then she would still live on eternally and infinitely beautiful, but the bristles grow forever more prickly in my brain as a reminder that the full sun brings light to the flaws of every man, woman, and child.  Alas for us all.

Peace
..._