Don't Call Me Normal!
I was walking past the bookstore the other day when I saw a young girl give way to an elderly woman walking to the bus stop. It was such an ordinary sight of a stranger's kindness that I paused in place and burned her ordinary smile into my memory. Her normal features stood out as though she were a silhouette of grey among the grime and sunlight. During my temporary pause she disappeared and although I never imagined seeing her again I never did forget that ordinary encounter with the normal girl.
A few months later I saw her again. She was whistling as she skipped wearing a normal high school uniform like an average high school girl. As she walked towards me I was again transfixed by the sight of her and she crashed into me. In the most normal of encounters I apologized to her for being careless. She apologized as well and gave me such a normally warm smile that my heart melted and a tear rolled down my cheek. It puzzled her enough that she actually accepted my invitation to have some coffee at café we were in front of.
Over the next few months we normally dated. Nearing her graduation we normally introduced each other to our families and with their consent I normally asked her to marry me one normal evening fall night under the moonlight. Our life became normally busy when she became pregnant with our child who as expected was born in a bland fashion and would grow up to be an average office lady. However, at each stage of our normal life together she would always smile at me with that normal smile of her that would bring a tear to my eyes. Each time she would ask what the tear was for and I would always respond, "It's just a normal reaction." It became the norm that she would pout in a fashion that would bring a half smile to me, one that our daughter would frequently mimic in the normal way that a daughter should shadow her mother.
Eventually the kids grew up and went out into the world to make their normal mark in history although they never made it big, they always made it fine. Now I am aged and my wife has aged so normally as the Japanese seem to do, she looks as normally radiant as she did all those years ago. She smiles at me in that every day way of hers and a tear rolls down my cheek.
"Why do you cry?"
"It's a normal reaction because in my normal life, you have been the most special thing in it." She smiles at me again and as I'd expected from my normal wife.
"Don't call me normal!" with a pout in her face.
With a smile on my face I fade into the night with my normal life holding my hands in the most normally loving manner that has always warmed my heart.