Troy Burroghs: The Deep Blue Sea

I was walking through Herald’s in London it was Thanksgiving Day in the US of A, —2001. As I was getting onto an escalator I met a young Spanish woman. I said Hola; she smiled and returned my greeting. She was Peruvian I think, like my wife, it must be I told myself, very lovely. We walked a little together, or at least it seemed we were together. I told her she had deep dark eyes. I’m kind of glad my wife wasn’t there because Peruvian women can get real jealous, even though my gesture was harmless, sometimes Peruvian women do not see it that way, they see it quite the opposite, harmful; yet my wife seems to understand my complements to others quite well, —most of the time….

I said to her: you have deep beautiful eyes—she smiled evermore, she lost her breathe for a moment, and then got it back.

‘I’m happily married….’ I added.

She looked a bit puzzled, but smiled anyways.

Anyhow, here we are on this escalator again, and a girlfriend of hers shows up, says:

‘Here’s a gift from a young admirer,’ it was a plastic ship. I took it out of her hands and in the process of taking it and examining it, the top of the smokestack fell off, broke. I commented, ‘It reminds me of the Taj Ma Hal,’ she looked at me with excitement. Then we walked a ways.

As we passed a jewelry stand, I made a 180-degree turn back, bringing her with me, and picked out a gold chain with a boat, figurine attached to it, sold gold. I bought it for her $139. 68, put it around her neck and said it was a gift.

She looked stunned, speechless.

As we walked a little farther, I stopped, put my hands on her face, by her ears and told her to look at me in my eyes, as if she wasn’t doing it already, for she was I think. Then I said,

‘Listen, my deep eyed beauty, you got to go into the Deep Blue Sea that is where you will find him.’

I then put my hands down and walked away taking the plastic ship with a sticker tag that read $4.28, and tossed it in the garbage can. I know she seen me do that, even though I do not have eyes in the back of my head, because I could see her reflection from the glass doors ahead of me.

I read about this girl who got married a few months ago, she was Spanish, in London, she had married a Yacht-builder, the owner, and was sailing off into the deep blue sea, to Easter Island, and Guam, or so it read in the paper. The picture looked like the same woman I had met, a year before this happening.

On a little different note, yet related to the happening above, let me say, it is funny how things turn out. I remember once being in Kyoto, Japan, about four years ago, met a Geisha in the famous Geon district, and talked to her but only for a minute or two. When I got home I went as usual to the Har Mar Mall Barnes & Noble Bookstore Deli, sat at a table (in Roseville, Minnesota); yes indeed, went into the bookstore, sat at a Barnes & Noble Deli table, reading one of the many books I read free there, $20,000-dollars worth of free books I should say of which I read their each year, spending about $5,000 on four-shot lattes, $2000 on books and magazines—I get my monies worth— (and they get theirs); looking through a book, I noticed the woman I had greeted on the street in Geon, yes in that very book I had in my hands, of the several books on my table. I went to compare it with my picture at home I had taken of us together, and sure enough, it was her. The world just is not big enough for me I guess. And you already know the end I had to buy the book, so it is $2015 that I spent on books that year.

Written: 11/28/02/Reedited 1/8/06