Looking For Love In Paris

He saw me sitting and gazing out the window on the night train to Paris. “He must be exceptional,” he said, “for you to think deeply and intensely about him .”I laughed, and as I was about to speak, he said, “you don’t have to tell me you have a boyfriend. I know you do.” I laughed again. “Hi,” he said, “my name is Ade .”“Hi,” I said back, “my name is Lola. I’m guessing we are both of Nigerian descent.” “Yeah,” he said. “Can I sit?” he asked; I nodded and gestured with my hand that he could sit. Then we began talking about everything from family to work to education and the weary state of our home country. Next, he began to talk about love, and my face dropped; I hate talking about love. How that topic depresses me. He told me the story of a young French lady he had fallen in love with. She was fair and slender, with thin pink lips and long black hair. She was the most beautiful girl, and her beauty was a manifestation of the gods. He compared her beauty to the goddess Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, and Dione, the roman goddess of glory, love, beauty, and sexuality. He loved her, OH how he loved her, but alas, her family would never agree for her to marry anyone, but a French man talks less of a black African man. He was so in love with her that only eight months after dating, he proposed to her at the famous Tuileries Garden in Paris. “I was so in love with her,” he said, looking out the window, but the night before they eloped, she sent him a letter saying she couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t betray her family name and legacy. His eyes became teary, and his face very blue. He turned to me and said, “have you ever been in love?” I was silent, and he asked again, “have you ever been in love,” I laughed, and when I could laugh no more, I said, “no,” and shed a tear. “I have never been in love.” At first, he looked at me in disbelief, then with pity, he felt so sorry for me, and he said so. “Though I have been heartbroken, I have been in love, and it was one of the most beautiful things I ever experienced,” he told me. Then I cried, a cloud of sadness began to rain over me, and despair took over my soul. I told him I was going to Paris on holiday, but I was really going to look for love in Paris. He laughed, and then I joined him. “I’m so silly,” I said. He answered, “no, you are not,” you are a risk-taker and brave. I asked him if he would search for his fair skin lady to rekindle their romance, and he answered, “no, I’m also going to find love again.” I laughed, and so did he, and we continued our conversation into Paris and longer, and that is how I met him, how I met my husband on the night train to Paris. Looking for love in Paris