All posts tagged expectations

55 Waiting

(credit: hashhq.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/l-b-c-making-news)

The timetable said that the bus would be there in ten minutes. Peter shifted his briefcase to the other hand. It had gone well all in all, the job would not make him rich, but it would be possible to pay for a wedding and a mortgage when he had settled in. Laura would say yes, if he asked her.

A black cat joined him at the bus stop.

But was that really what he wanted? Was he still too young to settle completely? There was so much he had not seen and experienced yet. He constantly felt there was something he was missing.

The black cat stretched, yawned and padded away behind him where it jumped into the wall and became a graffiti drawing of a black cat. It curled up and Zs appeared on the bricks above its head.

‘All the interesting things,’ thought Peter, ‘always happen to someone else. Maybe I’m just not active enough. I should go out and see the world. I could choose not to take this bus home. Scale Mount Everest, go deep sea diving, something like that.’ Only deep down Peter knew that he did not have the physique for something like that, and he did not have the will to obtain the physique either.

A man bumped into Peter’s shoulder and Peter looked at him with a frown. The man looked apologetic, but did not say anything as he evaporated. Peter kept looking at the space where the man had stood, his frown still in place, wondering why he was mildly irritated at someone who was clearly not there.

Peter checked his watch. Maybe he was just imagining things. ‘The neighbour’s grass is always greener,’ he thought, ‘and would it really be so bad to settle into a comfortable life, have some children, pick up a hobby, things like that.’

A bus stopped in front of him. He noticed that the bus had strange squiggly lines which he could not read instead of a number.

33 Expectations

He expected her to look more beautiful that day than ever before.

She expected him to finally admit to his feelings for her in plenum at dinner even though some of his friends would be present. Also, she expected him to wear a tie for once at the ceremony.

Her mother expected the marriage to last six months or a year at the most; in a year she expected her daughter to realize her mistake and marry the nice clean young man she had picked out for her.

The bride’s father expected it to be a very successful event. He expected that he had greased the wheels sufficiently and now after the ceremony, they would all practically slip through dinner and he could sit back at the end of the day with a job well done.

The groom’s father expected to get some sleep during the ceremony.

The groom’s mother expected to be driven mad by the bride’s mother before they were done with the first course.

His tie had been ruined during the stag party, so he did not wear one. Instead he made faces at one of his friends in the front pew which made his mother prod his father to hiss complaints at him which in turn kept his father awake.

When the bride finally came in, her face was red and puffy from crying and her dress made her look like an overweight snowman. Also, the music was much too loud for the groom’s father to fall asleep.

At dinner the groom held a speech with a few humorous anecdotes, but no feelings involved. And this, combined with the fact that his friends interrupted the other speeches during the first course, no matter how much the bride’s father shushed them, made the bride feel that she could never leave him. At least not before she had taught him how to express himself.

But close to the end of the first course a shrill voice called out and the groom’s mother flung her plate at the bride’s mother, threw her chair into the wall with enough force to chip the plaster, and stormed off to find her car, and thus, she at least had her expectations met.