Excerpt 01
I remembered what it was like when I first began dating Stephen. How happy I had been on that day in college when he finally asked me out for coffee. How wonderful our first couple of years together had been! Love had made my senses come alive. I saw things and felt things that I had previously overlooked. Since our bungalow was situated at the farthest end of the town, the landscape here was dotted with paddy and vegetable fields. In that enchanted and amorous state, I felt the morning breeze heavy with the fragrance of newly tilled paddy fields caress my cheeks; I saw the lone dewdrop trickle down the surface of a leaf, hesitantly halt at its edge and then with a brave downward leap of exaltation it embraced the ground; I empathized with the rhythmic urgency heard in the croaking lyric of the frog hoping to attract a mate; I silently applauded the melodious symphony performed by the sparrows that came to peck at the bread crumbs I threw out of my bedroom window… Ah! The magic of newly blossoming love! It charms one’s entire being…