For Him

She felt herself being watched.

Half too modest, half too scared, Makeda did not dare turn around lest her eyes meet his and her heavy breathing betray the erratic beat of her heart.


"Why won't he just stop!" she thought. "Maybe I'm imagining things. He isn't staring at me. I will just look around, the awkward moment will pass and life will go on."


That she did.


But Makeda had prepared herself for any eyes but those. Eyes so dark yet inviting, so angry but scared. Undeniably a rebel, but one still searching for his cause. His eyes said he had seen more than he cared to remember, endured more than a spirit should take. In that one moment, that solitary moment where his energy met hers, it felt like her soul crossed paths with an old friend. Makeda saw herself in those eyes, only happier.


But she blinked and that was all it took.


He took the intense heat of his stare away from her and gave it to another. Taller, slimmer, browner. Makeda hated herself for feeling cold. But those eyes...that particular brown. That shade of brown that would haunt every painting she painted since. That matched exactly the Nigerian wooden necklace she never removed.


She touched it now...


And that's when he touched her. Startled to say the least, Makeda turned around to look directly into those eyes she had only seen from far. Far deeper than she imagined, and nestled in a face misleadingly youthful and framed by a crown of dreadlocks giving off the aroma of fresh spring water, just-smoked ganja and Africa Musk oil. Struggling to find the words to address him....he smiled. Ever talkative, words failed her now.


So she smiled...


A second of interaction that felt like a lifetime, was broken when he wrinkled up his perfectly selected nose, turned his head ever so slightly to the left and said, "Sheba?"


Finally finding her voice, even as something inside her shattered, she shook her head and found it within her to tell him he had the wrong woman. He apologised, complimented her work, turned and walked away. Leaving behind him that combination of smells that etched itself into her psyche and the sensation on her arm where he had first touched her. Embarrassed by her reaction but inspired by it all Makeda discarded what she was working on and mounted a clean canvas, fresh theme in mind.


For him...her unsuspecting muse.