Highbury Fields

It was a gloomy afternoon in London but the bench in the park upon which they sat was bright.

Despite his tardiness, she, blonde and pale and beautiful, smiled that warm and true smile that would forever be etched in his heart, and said to the man:

“You should sit over here, to my right, I can’t hear out of my left ear.”

“Oh. Sure.” He replied, scrambling to think of a follow-up question.

They awkwardly traded places. He couldn’t come up with anything. So they sat in silence for a bit.

Then he clumsily swung his grey backpack he brought with him everywhere to the ground next to his legs, and the bottles clinked loudly, and he brought out a beer.

He opened it and the foam overflowed. She shifted in her green jumpsuit and cast her eyes away and chuckled.

Then, to break the tension, he said something equally awkward:

“Well if this goes bad, I’ll not say anything and just sit to your left.”

“Oh. Lovely.” She replied in a strong accent, but it just sounded English to him.

“So, where are you from?” the man asked, in an accent of his own that she couldn’t quite place. Or she could, but she didn’t want to presume. His broad, furrowed brow was gazing deeply and off, as if he was elsewhere. She noticed this but ignored it for the present. Maybe she could meet her friends at the pub later on.