Love is Stupid

“Louise,” he thought. “she looks like a Louise.”

He went up and introduced himself. Her name was not Louise, but it was still nice. She was drinking espresso and doing a puzzle meant for four year olds, multicolored with little wooden pegs to lift up each cutout shape.

“I think that one goes there,” he said, pointing to a square, then a hole shaped like a triangle.

She tried it. It didn’t fit. They each hummed with consideration. After a few seconds pause, she picked up the piece shaped like a triangle and put it in the hole shaped like a triangle. It fit.

She only had the square, the octagon and the circle left to go. There were 3 holes remaining, shaped like a square, an octagon and a circle.

“Would you like to go on a walk with me tomorrow if the weather’s nice?”

She blushed and smiled, “yes, that sounds lovely.”

They exchanged numbers, he lingered for a moment but decided to leave her to her puzzle, not wanting to seem over-eager.

“Pleasure to meet you, miss. Until tomorrow.” He walked out the door. The coffee shop resumed its murmuring, and she picked up a puzzle piece shaped like a rectangle and tried to put it in the hole shaped like an octagon. It didn’t fit. She sighed and tried the one shaped like a circle.

That night she fell asleep dreaming contentedly of their walk, and eventually their date, marriage, children, and golden years together. She awoke to rain pounding on the roof.

And he sat at his breakfast table, an English muffin growing cold in front of him. He was unable to think of a way out of the stipulations he had set for their walk: “if the weather’s nice.”

The rain came down incessantly on the city all day long. Each watched the downpour with round eyes, through square windows.

Neither of them were terribly intelligent.