He felt like a stalker for watching her all day, but she was just so beautiful. It was like he knew her from a past life, but science—which he'd recently taken a liking to—told him this was impossible. It didn't seem it though… It definitely didn't seem impossible for Daniel to have known this girl in the past, in a life he couldn't quite remember, or maybe in the future. He had set his piano up on the stage across the street from her museum, so that whenever she walked out front he would see her. He was doing his best to look natural on the stage, as if he was just practicing and enjoying the air, but he felt even more awkward than usual with his eyes following her—as though she might look up at any second and see him looking at her. He let his fingers dance along the keys without cue from his brain, and continued to follow his beautiful redhead with his eyes. Every once and a while he would try thinking of something else, just for the heck of it, like his music or the equations he'd written the other day, but these things were either too complicated or not enough so and could never hold his interest.
He thought, once, about going up to talk to her. He imagined vividly himself having a perfectly normal conversation with his redhead, as if he was a perfectly normal person. Hello there, he would say to her completely naturally, it'salovelydaytodayisn't it?
Why yes, she would reply, yes it is. I'm… he didn't know her name but he imagined she would say it here, by theway, she would add as if it was just a thought, introducing herself politely, even though in his fantasies she always knew him, too.
Whatanicename, he would smile then, as he was pretty sure that would seem the natural thing to do, mine's Daniel.
Whatanicename, she would say back, smiling as well. Even though it wasn't—it was a rather boring, common name really.
He almost didn't enjoy thinking in this way, though. Even in his mind he could barely get through the sentences, especially when confronted with this horribly—beautifully—distracting girl. Cursing his lack of social skills, he once again resigned himself to watching her. Maybe she would decide to talk to him, sometime. It was a great thought, if an unlikely one. So he let it float around his head, along with music and math and imagined conversations.
He tried to imagine a name for her. He was feeling almost sure that he would never get the chance to talk to her, except maybe after he was dead when she would introduce herself as an angel. But considering his imagined name wouldn't help him, Daniel tried to push this idea from his mind, even though 'Charlotte' kept popping up, as though he had already decided on calling her that. He tried not to think of her that way though, just as his redhead—his already being wishful thinking—in case they ever did meet and she introduced herself by her actual name, and he would have to change his mental image of her… of Charlotte. What an extraordinary coincidence it would be, though, if that did end up being her name. Charlotte… it was such a pretty name, nearly as pretty as the girl it didn't really belong to, and he loved how it rolled off his tongue. As if, as long as that was in the sentence, he would be able to say anything he wished without having to think about how to phrase it. This girl and her imagined name were making everything easier already.
His redhead, Charlotte, didn't seem to be having the same problems he was. He tried, for a little while, but he just couldn't imagine her looking up at him sitting there awkwardly playing the piano and thinking "I wonder if his name is Daniel?"
It was much too absurd a thing for a normal person to think. He did try to imagine her, imagining herself having conversations with him… as if maybe he was hers too: her musician. And what if she would look up at him, whenever she felt he was not looking, and try to imagine him looking at her? That would be truly amazing, however unlikely. He wondered if, in her imagined conversations, she tried to think of names for him. If she was trying not to think of him as Daniel, or as some other name, in case she was wrong.
Daniel knew, though, that this was all wishful thinking. This girl seemed far too happy to be concerning herself with made-up conversations and names, as he was. And she was definitely too mentally healthy to think this far in depth about a complete stranger, unless he wasn't a stranger to her… unless, as it seemed, he had known her. Maybe in a past life they'd been together… He had known her name, and that was why he knew—or guessed—it now? He shook his head slowly, trying to clear it of these impossibilities, but couldn't. He had to hold on to the hope that his Charlotte knew him, and was thinking about him, too. Or at least was trying not to.
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