ten thousand meanings

In my cupboard in the kitchen sits a small pot. I am idly filling it with mustard seeds. There are some potatoes in the corner of the cupboard that have started to sprout pale shoots in the warm dry darkness.

It's a Wednesday afternoon and I am wearing my hair in a new style. It makes me nervous and I keep adjusting the band, pulling it straight, pushing it off my forehead - trying to keep it as good as it looked for that second of perfect pose in the mirror 3 hours earlier.

A boy comes into the thin, dimly lit room. He says hello to me but that's it. That's ok, I know he's shy. He sits down at the piano and starts to play. His fingers are long and thin and they are producing beautiful music. I am entranced. I slow my movements as I listen and half turn towards him. I've seen him a few times in the house and I kinda like him. Once I was reading a book on the stairs when he came out of the shower. He smiled really wide when he saw me. Once I saw him on the street and I winked at him cos I was in a good mood and feeling a bit cheeky - sometimes winking is a bit easier than saying hello anyway. Years of accquaintance can be distilled into a little head nod. This guy rents me the internet time that I'm typing this on - but we've never had a conversation because I know he's shy.

So I'm trying to think of what I can say about his piano playing, wondering what I'm going to say when he finishes, when suddenly he gets up and walks out of the room. That's it, he's gone; mid tune. Interaction over. How strange. I imagine a hundred different ways to interpret that scene. What if he was expressing his desire to talk to me by playing the piano. Maybe this is the start of a grand and beautiful love story, played out in the top and bottom rooms of a shabby shared house by the sea. How will we start talking? Where would we be when we first kissed? He's got nice eyes. Why did he leave so abruptly like that? Is there something he wants to say to me or is it just that I fancy him a bit? I think I fancy him a bit.