Touching Hearts
"What comes from the heart, touches the heart."
Don Sibet
Ash Ketchum and Misty Waterflower hardly noticed when the waitress came and placed the plates on their table. They were seated in a small breakfast café, tucked away from the bustle of a busy street in central Viridian City. Even the smell of the recently arrived blintzes was no challenge to their excited chatter. In fact, the blintzes remained slumped in their sour cream for quite some time. The two were immersed in their conversation—enjoying themselves too much to eat.
Their exchange was lively, if not profound. They laughed about the movie that they saw the night before and bickered over the memories they had when they used to travel together. Ash told her about the moment when he had taken the 'drastic step into maturity' by becoming "Ash Ketchum of the Kanto Elite Four" and refusing to respond to Gary Oak's famed "Ashy-boy". Had he been twelve or fourteen? He couldn't remember, but he did recall that his mother had cried once and told him that he was growing up too quickly.
As they bit into their Pecha Berry blintzes, Misty told him about the berries that she and her sisters used to pick when they went to visit the old field in small Pallet Town. She recalled that she always finished hers before they got back to the house, and her sisters would warn her that she was going to get a very bad stomach ache. "Of course, I never did," Misty grinned.
As their sweet conversation continued, Misty's eyes glanced across the restaurant, stopping at the small corner booth where an elderly couple sat.
Her floral-print dress seemed as faded as the cushion on which she had rested her worn handbag. The top of his head was as shiny as the soft-boiled egg on which he very slowly nibbled. She also ate her oatmeal at a slow, almost tedious pace.
But what drew Misty's thoughts to them was their undisturbed silence. It seemed that a melancholy emptiness permeated their little corner. As the exchange between her and Ash fluctuated from laughs to whispers, confessions to assessments, this couple's poignant stillness called to her. How sad, she thought, to not have anything left to say. Wasn't there any page that they hadn't yet turned in each other's stories? What if that happened to us?
The two paid their small tab and got up to leave the restaurant. As they walked by the corner where the old couple sat, Misty accidentally dropped her wallet. Bending over to pick it up, she noticed that under the table, each of their free hands was gently cradled in the other's.
They had been holding hands all this time…
Misty stood up and felt humbled by the simple yet profound act of connection she had just been graced to witness. This man's gentle caress of his wife's tired fingers filled not only what she had previously perceived as an emotionally empty corner, but also her own heart.
Theirs was not the uncomfortable silence whose threat one always feels just behind the punch line or at the end of an anecdote on a first date. No, theirs was a comfortable, relaxed ease, a gentle love that knew it did not always need words to express itself. They had probably shared this hour of the morning with each other for a long time, and maybe today wasn't even that different from yesterday, but they were at peace with that, and with each other.
Maybe, Misty thought as she and Ash walked out, it wouldn't be so bad if someday that was us.
"Maybe, it would be kind of nice."
A/M: Inspired from Daphna Renan's "A Gentle Caress"