on the moment of impact-

she sat in her campus coffee shop recalling to a friend one night in an irish pub. it was in the city of dublin a french man spotted her across the room, as she walked past with a guinness in hand.

 he smiled. "you're so beautiful."

blushing she responds trying to empty the noise around them; the only people standing in the room would be he and her. after the exchange of a few impersonal sentences, she walks across the pub and sits down. minutes later he beckons her to dance. she does. and that dance would amount to so much more than impulse. he twirls her around; it didn't matter so much she was two-thirds his age, or that his beautiful french accent fogged her understanding of the poetically flattering words coming from his month...the song ends, he lifts her back onto both feet. with a curtsy he leaves her to her guinness.

then the moment of impact.

he grabs his coat, heads out the door, and then consciously walks back to her.

"i like you so much... you are so beautiful." she blushes. her eyes grow sad. then he echoes the words she would never forget. the words she would replay over and over again, even months after, into the next year.

"i hope life gives you what you need." and there it was, the moment of impact.

she would remember for the rest of her life, his soft hands, the way they brushed against her face as her eyes welled with tears. she would remember what it felt like, the gentle touch of a stranger who wanted something so pure. and the depth of his eyes- O how they reached to her soul and underneath, filling the void of whatever once dwelled there. 

a french man loved more in one moment than all past lovers had in many lives. and it didn't matter at all that she would never see him again in this lifetime, he would remain a stranger. one who shifted something within her with a single wish.