Will She Ask Me

By Ethan Alexander Perets

Will she ask me?

On a Wednesday evening, the woman arrives at the table where the man sits alone. In the crowded bar-hall that adjoins the weekly vacant dance floor, this table can be particularly troublesome to find. The act, therefore, is not without some doing.

The man raises his eyes. Before him lies only a long and narrow room, clothed in pale shades of crimson red where lamplight has faded the lush interior. The headache slowly grows larger, each passing moment pounds harder on the crown of his head whenever he looks in the woman’s direction.

‘May I sit down?’