Friendship Prelude

    They’d met at a bustling, annual, few-day event. Hundreds of people milling about in groups, trios and duos; all chasing new sorts of friends, skills, and stories. The pure adrenaline, the high of socialising was all that kept you going as you talked yourself hoarse to infinite strangers and your long-known friends. 
    The first two days of the event, they both simply passed through each other’s constantly changing peripheries. On the third day, as the sun dipped in the sky, brushing across with its amber rays, he sat alone on a bench under a tree. She was passing by once more, but this time she stopped; the album cover of a song he was playing caught her eye. Walking to him, she tapped him on the shoulder and perched herself beside him. Other passersby noticed them as they walked along. Two figures sitting side-by-side, engaged in passionate conversation, the sun’s dying rays illuminating their animated faces, a song softly playing in between, the tree’s leaves swaying in the evening breeze.
    Praises of beloved songs and critiques of other tunes had turned gradually to introductions and stories, anecdotes and playful teases, gasps and laughter. When the sun had set, and the breeze grew stronger, messing with their hair, they slowly walked to dinner. Only a few remarks punctured a comfortable silence. The rare kind of silence that exists when you’ve found someone new, and have so much to say to each other, but there is an implicit assurance that it doesn’t have to be said all at once in a frantic stream of words. They are not a fleeting figure in your life. There will be another time.
    Arriving at the dining hall, they parted to eat with their friends—extricating themselves afterwards. Then they walked and sat and talked and laughed under the night sky, eyes shining as bright as stars, as they do when one finds just the right words to say to just the right person at just the right time. She made him laugh, and the sound delighted her so much she wanted to trace her fingers across the keys of humour and play it again and again. He was enchanted by the way she spoke—in a rush of words with scarcely a breath between them; her voice a gilded string through which her thoughts beaded themselves.
    Days later, when they’d try to remember what they’d talked about, the exact words they’d said—memory would fail them. All they’d remember were the broad strokes they’d painted of their thoughts, their lives, and bits and pieces of stories and absurdities. The time he’d planned out a confession to a long-held crush, only to find that she was dating someone else. The time she’d nursed a friend through a breakup, only for her to jump back into the scoundrel’s arms. 
    Memories had been shared; stories swapped. They had not yet bared their souls to each other, not shared their dreams or whispered dark secrets, but they did get a glimpse into the other’s soul, and hoped someday to unravel the rest.
    That night was not their crescendo, but a soft prelude to their symphony. It was not a friendship yet, that would take time, but it was certainly the beginning to a beautiful one.