The Memory Stick

This is part 1 of this story for the whole story click here

The brownish golden leaf fell gently to the ground, no wind to snatch it from its branch just a combination of nature and gravity bringing it gently to the ground. Steve watched it fall before turning his attention back to the girl in the red dress. He sighed at her unrelenting beauty. Every day he’d watched her come down the steps with that little spring in her step then walk across the park and sit on the bench opposite his. She’d eat her lunch, read a book and then when her time was up, walk jauntily back into her building. That first falling leaf was a reminder that it would soon be too cold for lunch on the park bench and that would mean she would disappear indoors until spring.  She was his girl from Ipanema, every day when she walked to the sea she stared straight ahead not at he. Only she was walking to a park bench not the sea and this was Clapham not Rio. He was infatuated by her but she didn't even notice him as he ate his lunch on the bench opposite. She’d worn a range of dresses that summer but the red one was his favourite. It was the one that caught his eye way back in May when she had first made that journey across the park. Steve loved way it clung to her body as she walked, revealing her curves, then letting them go. He knew every curve, every contour of that body. He watched as she read her book, idly playing with a strand of hair that had fallen down over her face before nonchalantly tucking it back behind her ear. He saw her lip curve slightly up as something she read amused her, he smiled with her.

He longed to talk to her, it would be so easy, he had played it out so many times in his head; he would stride across the park full of confidence and sit on the bench next to her.  But even in his imagination when he opened his mouth in front of her, nothing came out. And what would he say, I’ve been watching you all summer? How creepy did that sound? But it was better than you're beautiful.

Suddenly Steve stood up, grabbed his jacket and started towards her bench. He didn’t know what had come over him, it was like he was being remote controlled, something in his brain had clicked; he was going to go and talk to her and nothing was going to stop him.  But his pace slowed as he walked along the path and the realisation of what he was doing dawned on him. Where he had started out marching he was now meandering. His real brain was fighting back against the imposter that had assumed control and made him leave the sanctuary of his bench. What the hell am I doing? he thought to himself, there’s no way I can talk to her, what was I thinking?

As he neared the girl his timid side was back in control, gone was the bravado, he no longer had the strength to talk to her, he knew he would just walk on by, go on a circuit of the park and go back to his office.

‘Excuse me’,  the soft almost childlike voice ferociously wrenched him from his thoughts like the harsh pull of a parachute. What? Who? Where? it couldn’t be could it? It was! He looked around and saw the oh so familiar girl in a red dress, she had spoken to him.  

He looked at her, she brushed her hair from her face in the way he had watched her do from afar so many times before,  there was something fragile in her gesture. She smiled a half-smile, Steve stood looking at her as if frozen by her voice; his brain was not firing synapses but firing blanks. 


She leant forward, he involuntarily jumped back, she smiled amused by his shyness, she held out her hand.

‘Can you look after this for me?’ she whispered, Steve looked down and saw a memory stick in her hand. Silently he reached forward and took it, their skin brushing, his head nodding dumbly.

‘Now go’ she said, still whispering but a steel in her voice. Steve meekly did as he was told, memory stick in hand, head racing with unanswered questions, heart beating with excitement. 

This is part 1 of this story for the whole story click here