They'd been talking for hours.  Literally hours now, since early evening,
and now the sun was threatening to rise.  He supposed he'd been doing
most of the jabbering, but she'd kept up her share as well, their topics
ranging over the full spectrum of idle conversation, from chest hair to
relationships to exes-who-won't-talk.  She'd not slept the night before,
was flagging now; he filled the silence, well into an early-morning
second wind, giddy from all the listening that she'd done.  It's dangerous
to give a man a listener, doubly so in these wee hours when restraint
seems to loosen into growing familiarity.  That would be gone by next
time they met, of course, but now...

At the moment he's being struck by the brackish green color of the
fishtank algae, in the room behind her.  He's in the doorway,
ostensibly bidding his leave -- he's been saying goodbye, in such a
roundabout way, for at least thirty minutes.  He's taken by the
particular greenhouse hue, and no sooner thought than said, his words
spilling into the patient, if tiring, ear of the girl.  That shade of
green.  Like limpid water.  He knows that limpid means clear, he
rambles on, but it also means untroubled, utterly peaceful, and he'd
always associated still water with algae.  So limpid water is green
in his mind -- just the color green they're discussing -- even though
it's supposed to be perfectly clear.  Denotationally, he means.
Connotationally, ...

She looks up, her eyes resting on his for a moment -- a shade longer than a
casual moment, not nearly as long as a romantic moment.  With a start:

   Your eyes are exactly the color!  Just that color!  That green...

Now his mind will always phrase it "her limpid green eyes" and he knows
that means her eyes are clear but it's that brackish green color he
means.

   Look up.  Let me see your eyes again.

And his hand brushes her cheek with the imperative.  Knuckle almost caressing
as he lifts her cheekbone with the back of his index finger.  Her eyes raise.
Look boldly into his.

He checks his impression.  Yes, it's just that color.  A beautiful color,
really: the green of chlorophyll, of living things.

He doesn't blurt this impression out, not this time.  They're not quite
familiar enough for him to be praising her eyes, not yet at least,
and he's aware he's broken a invisible barrier in touching her
just now.  It wasn't a caress, he reasserts.  I just wanted to check
the color...

He doesn't utter these justifications, either.  A silence hangs between
them as he compares, mind racing.  He stumbles back to the conversation's
course: yes, just so.  Just as he thought.  The same color green.  She
disagrees.  He asks whether her eyes change in their color, whether she
could herself be unaware of how precisely *algae green* her eyes are
this moment.  He does not add that they are beautiful.  But they are.

She does not drop her gaze, continues to look forward, open,
asking for further scrutiny.  He takes the scientific stance.
Ah, so-ing he changes angles and observes the subtle color shifts due
lighting, incidence, and a thousand other details, all of which
form the ground of his running commentary.  Kept light and amusing.
Not revealing how his mind keeps darting back to that touch.  Her
soft cheek.  The rough skin of his knuckle on her fine
features.  On pretext of impartial observation his eyes are fixed
on hers:  a darker ring around the iris -- beyond the
spectrum of algae, into spinach -- still a plant color, a
living color.  And the innermost circle of iris, where it meets
pupil, shading to a light hazel; a pond color, consistent with the scheme.

His pleasant conversation has moved on to fish and fish tanks, has
left the dangerous eye dialogue, but her eyes are still on his.
And his mind insists on returning to the touch, ignoring his
witty banter, his attempt at stimulating conversation this early
in the morning.  What he's saying doesn't mean anything.  That's
known, if unsaid.  Their spoken riffs feint at friendly parting, trying
to draw things to resolution, without knowing what
close they seek.  If lovers, they would seal the moment
with a kiss.  They're not; not even hugging friends.
But he's broken the 6-inch rule of separation.
At the moment, without thought.

But that touch.  Her cheek.  Her eyes.

Many many minutes later, when they finally do part -- ungracefully,
as unfortunately pairs must at this stage of knowing -- the moment
still burns his memory.  And will, for several days after.  Until
he sees her again, and follows the pleasant accident with decided
intention.
                                         -- CSA, 25-Feb-2000.  3am.