Never Too Far

The Walk and the Fountains

The stairs of the hotel are strangely silent for the age of them, at least this way I don't wake up the other visitors. On the walls are different paintings from local artists and one framing of some old sheet music that I had been told had been a lovers gift to the mother of the hotel owner when she left her husband to follow her heart. I couldn't say why he chose to display it but it made for excellent conversation on my first night. 

Down a little further the wooden stairs are traded for a blue tile, here there are two doorways, one that leads to the reception and one that served as the entrance to the building, going through the door I felt the morning greet me once again, almost as if it wondered where I had been since I opened my window 10 minutes earlier.

Starting off on my walk I check my watch. I'll need to make sure I return in time to travel to the station. A bus would come to the area around 8am. Walking through the town I enjoyed once more the now familiar spots, such as the 3 strawberry pots across from the hotel, the crystal tea glasses in the display a few doors down and the dark green doorway that sometimes held a small orange kitten, not today though it seems, maybe it'll see me off on my way back.

A few blocks down I turn the corner to pass the bakery, which as usual was smelling of flour and freshly folded pastries. Suddenly I hear footsteps nearby, and as I cross into the next side street a woman turns to join me in my walk. I've never seen anyone else out this early.

"Ciao" I say, hoping that I seem friendly. Maybe I should turn at the next block so she doesn't feel uncomfortable. As I'm thinking this however I see a smile appear "Hi" she says, "lovely morning for a walk". I agree and comment how I love the silence that the early hours can offer. 

"I love your accent" she comments "Are you Australian?". I had in fact grown up in australia although I never really thought of it as a nice accent, I suppose she would think the same if I explained how I enjoyed hers. "I am, I'm here travelling for the summer". 

"Are you here for long?" she asks. "Yes I've already been here a week, this is actually my last morning before I catch the train north". She asks me a few questions about my time here and we discover that It was a colleague of hers that I was drinking with last night. I don't know if our walking paths were similar or if we had become magnetised to each other but we seemed to talk forever, turning almost on auto pilot onto the same streets as each other until we were just exploring. I explained my travel plans and she told me about her summer activities. She said it was a shame I was leaving so soon and I told her that I would be returning after the summer to study music, she seemed really pleased, it caught me off guard and my heart fluttered for a short moment.

We finally came to a point where we would be walking in different directions, splitting apart by the fountain that rested in the middle of the plaza. I couldn't find myself leaving and we couldn't possibly have found a break in our conversation. Eventually we gave up on looking like we had somewhere to go and sat on the edge of the fountain. Up until now I had of course been aware that she was an attractive woman, that wasn't uncommon in this area, however only in this moment sitting on the almost cold stone did I see her up close. The red in her cheeks and on the tip of her nose, the way her hair rested gently on her shoulders but stuck to her almost sweating forehead, and the way her eyes stared at me as though she never wanted to forget me. She made me feel like a work of art, something that I had never felt before. At this point I realised I never answered her question "Will you call me from St Malo?", of course I would, but at that moment I couldn't speak, and from the way she also remained silent I knew that she understood that theres no way I would forget to call.

We didn't make a sudden tangle of lips or run to the hotel. Instead we embraced and made our promises to meet again when I return. As I walked away I checked my watch for the time, though I couldn't say what it was, all of my focus was on her steps as they faded away and hid once more beneath the sound of the fountain and the slowly waking city. Looking down at the 10-digits she handed to me I see written above, the name that I had somehow not picked up on as we spoke: "Alicia".