It was like watching a movie without sound. We had a window seat inside the air-conditioned restaurant. A couple sat at an outside table, slightly lower than us. It was a body-reading experience. The man, two-day beard, white, maybe mid-twenties, faced a woman, perhaps Latino, around the same age. Neither wore wedding rings. They stayed connected with each other with eye contact, body language. The guy was cooler, more constrained. The woman wriggled her feet, leaned forward, finger-played the hair alongside her face. No cell phone fiddling, people watching, blank-eyed self-absorption for either of them…a focused encounter, a serious date.
Was I being voyeuristic? Hell, my hearing aids weren’t doing the job in the noisy restaurant. I could barely hear the conversation between my wife and our two friends across the table. I grasped maybe two or three words in a sentence. I could tell the topic but not the content…just a bit better than the silent mimes outside. I was busy observing and filling in the blanks on two fronts.
I’ve made movies. The story elements are mostly non-verbal—setting, clothes, music, make-up, gestures, action. Words are important but dialogue is only one component. I saw a Japanese movie once that had only four words, titles actually – winter, spring, summer, fall and all the rest was action. A study in cinema as storytelling.
Our food finally came and our table conversation slowed down. Outside the woman and guy kept engaging. The guy, a study in non-verbal minimalism simply nodded from time to time while the woman leaned forward working subtle smiles and engaging eyes. I suddenly had the feeling that I was a fan at a soccer match where folks on the field deked, dodged and shot while us in the stands clapped and passed the popcorn.
So, in effect, I was in the middle of two silent movies absorbing gestures and facial reactions, smiles and laughter in a vacuum of dialogue. Our friends smiled and nodded gentle affirmations. The guy outside, however, never smiled while the young woman really worked the scene.
When they finally got up and left, I wondered if they had a future together; if she would continue to absorb his every word, send so much attention, so many signals, his way. It was working so far.
Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/
