Melika

The performance hall lights dim.  The low chatter of the audience turns into a hush and ends.  The curtains pull back to reveal the orchestra in the middle of the stage. 

I think I imagine his left knee touching my right.  I pull my knee inside my little bubble in my chair.  The conductor signals the first group of musicians to start the sweet and sad first movement. 

I feel his arm touching mine.  I pull my arm inside my bubble.  His right hand reaches across his body and finds my hand in the dark.  I sit there motionless in my bubble, neither gripping his hand, nor pushing it off.  I don't want his touch, for who is he to me but a stranger, a man I only just met?  To him this might be the moment when he tries to take one step further in our new relationship.  To me, it has taken a whole few weeks and this night to realize that I don't, I can't, let him in.  How I wish someone else were sitting next to me, the one whose touch I miss, the touch that could send me into an orbit of joy and ecstasy. 

The music plays and I sit in my bubble with my hands wrapped around my jacket.  How long before the last note?