Untitled Paragraph, maybe "The Ledge"

She was sitting on a ledge, staring distantly into the non-sequential city horizon while the sun, dipping behind grey clouds and reemerging in yellow splendor, cast chilly shadows across her face, when his quiet, gradual approach distracted her gaze. Her heart did not leap so much at seeing him as it leapt for the fantasy that he might be puppyishly excited to find her here, among the throngs of human masses who dominated the ledges. She was looking at him but she wasn’t staring at him, and he was close enough to recognize her and mime a friendly wave and “hello.” She mouthed a cool response, like “hey,” or “what’s up,” and smiled wistfully as he weaved through plastic chairs and people who occupied them, some pushed dangerously close to the ledge’s metal bar balustrade and some pressed back against the stony wall of the building, and most scattered throughout the center. It just happened that there was an empty chair next to hers that, whether he wanted to or not, he had to occupy, as there were no other seats available. They were only acquaintances, made friendly by mutual interests in art, history, and philosophy, topics which could be grossly hard to come by in these modernist liberal institutions. “Hitler was very cultured in the arts,” he said, breaking the silence of the ledge, which had only previously been marred by gurgling noises from a couple on their right. “And Kevin Hearn is a poster child for the new art of blowing bubbles, but that’s hardly what makes him famous.” And no sooner had these words echoed in her brain than she realized that he, in fact, was not on that ledge in the empty seat next to her, nor did she know where he was or why this convolution of a casual-encounter fantasy fogged her mind. She couldn’t understand why she was having such thoughts of chance meetings with an attractive young acquaintance to whom she felt little attraction anyway. She knew, though, that she wanted a thoughtful, comfortable conversation with him, but would have to settle for the quiet, crowded, thought-lost ledge.