Less than so

We were standing in front of the sign saying ’two’, as in row number two, as in this is the row you want if you want prose about food; lists of recipes, biographical works about your favorite television chef’s troubled youth. Now, I wasn’t really that hungry, and though by nature I’m easily persuaded, I was actually looking for row number one. It wasn’t there though, not at this end nor the other for that matter; two was simply not anticipated by one however strange it might sound. One of the universe’s impeccable truths was mocking me, right there in the library.
As I saw how the black-haired girl was just as thrown-off as I was, I allowed myself to ask her; ‘are you looking for the first row as well?’ She was, and we laughed lightly and shortly with our mouths shut. A laughter based on air through our noses, which our position as strangers with a mutual cause demanded. Apparently, as we were soon to find out, the first row was hiding horizontally behind all the other rows. Well, I assumed we both thought, how the fuck were we supposed to know? But eventually I got my book and I bid the girl farewell.

It would not, however, be the last time I met the black-haired girl over missing numbers. In fact, no less than twenty minutes would pass before we met once again. I was at the bus stop, waiting for the north-going seven. It was supposed to arrive a quarter past, but ten minutes after that deadline, it was the black-haired girl, not the bus, who arrived. We looked at each other with surprised familiarity, and I said; ‘the seven is missing as well,’ as if the meaning behind such an odd phrase was common knowledge for any stranger at a bus stop.
She asked whether I was going north, to which I answered positively. ‘Then you should take the thirty-three, that’s the one I’m taking,’ she said. And the thirty-three did arrive only a few minutes later, and then we stood for what amounted to a quarter of an hour pressed up against each other in that equally awkward and intimate space that is the hallway of a bus. Sophia was her name, she said, when I finally festered out this essential question. I told her what I usually went by as well. She got off two stops before I did, and I admired the waves of black hair playing in the wind as I drove away.

One of the following days, I spoke to my friend, my good and old friend, Tom. I told him about my meeting with the black-haired Sophia. He said it was a strange coincidence, as a couple of his other acquaintances recently had mentioned a black-haired Sophia as well.
“But it can’t be the same Sophia, that’s impossible,” I said.
Tom wasn’t, however, ready to mark the circumstances as neither random nor without matter, so he started hearing me out about her looks. I told him about the sharp facial structures, the high cheekbones, black eyes, thin legs in black leggings, ending in a couple of black Converse. She was mostly black.
“Yes,” Tom nodded, that did follow the description quite well.
I decided to quickly throw the subject away and try not to waste any more time speculating about this odd coincidence, or whichever you might want to call it.

And I did get the girl out of my head. Well, mostly. I suddenly realized that I had unconsciously taken bus thirty-tree instead of seven ever since the girl told me to. That being in spite of the latter coming and going thrice as often. And then one day, she was there again, and she came at me smiling and greeting. I was surprised and a bit perplexed, and thus asked her where in heavens name she had been. It truly was a silly question. Silly, aggressive and profoundly uncalled for. Nevertheless, she just answered that she had been here and there. I couldn’t think of anything clever to say, and not wanting to risk degrading myself once again, I just stood there, and incidentally I got fixated on her cheek, which was blushing pink from the air of Spring.
“Do you want my right cheek?” she then asked.
“Your cheek?” I answered puzzled.
“Yeah,” she said and pressed a finger against the skin of her right cheek, as if to avoid confusion as to which was the right cheek and which was the left.
Bus thirty-three drove up behind her, while she was still standing there, finger in cheek, and she said; “let’s go then!”
This time we got two seats next to each other, thus our common room was both less intimate and less awkward; we were looking in the same direction and only our arms touched slightly.
“My stop is up next,” she said immediately, “so you have to hurry, if you want to explore. Or exploit, whichever you prefer. Your piece, that is.”
“My piece?” I asked.
“My right cheek,” she said.
I stared at her, dumbfounded, into her eyes, then at her cheek, then into her eyes again and I said nothing.
“You could pet it. Or kiss it.”
“Kiss it?” I said in a voice, which at this point sounded more a statement than a question.
“Okay,” she said, “I see that you’re new at this. But I really have to get off now.” My body suddenly took this moment to be the moment, and before my mind had realized what was happening, I had pressed my lips against her right cheek.
“Good,” she said. She smiled approvingly, rather than giving me a set of surprised eyes, a disgusted shrug, or a couple of angry words - you know, the usual stuff you get from kissing a stranger. The bus stopped and in the open door, the black hair fluttered weightlessly in the breeze.

“It was an extraordinary thing, a remarkable situation,” I said to Tom, when I told him about my third meeting with the black-haired Sophia.
“Less than so,” he said speculatively. He had recently heard about another guy, who had been offered the left cheek of the supposedly same Sophia.
“Well, what am I supposed to make of this, then?” I asked at a complete loss of mind.
“I don’t know. You’re the one who has her right.”
I merely stared at him. “Are you saying that I share her body with other guys?”
“Less is more,” Tom said. “That’s what they say, right?”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, that the next time I saw Sophia, I was also standing at the bus stop. I asked her whether this was a coincidence, to which she answered that it probably wasn’t.
“Do I still have your right cheek?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” she answered. She even turned her cheek, almost as a gesture of promise.
“But who has your left then?”
“Don’t you mind.”
“And what about your nose? Or your chin? Or your… Your lips! I realized that I had been building a tower of frustration within me, measuring up anger towards Sophia and all that she was. Now it all came beaming out. “I have to make do with only one of your cheeks? Should I settle for only a tiny piece of you, Sophia? What if I want your entire face? What if I’ll only be satisfied when I have your whole body?”
“Poor you,” she silently put.
“What!?” I yelled.
“You’re a dreamer. Dreams hurt, you should know that. Or at least you should learn it, rather sooner than later. People get lost in dreams, you’re not the first poor thing falling down that hole.” She paused for a moment. “I’m afraid I have to take my right cheek back, though I’d not hoped it would end this way.”
“But that’s not what I meant!” I suddenly didn’t know what I actually meant. I quickly added: “I just want more!”
“Most people want more,” she said. “More is dangerous. Less is safe. Less is mostly the best choice.”
“Sometimes less is just less,” I said.
Sophia looked at me and sighed. Then she blew me her last kiss and turned around, leaving the bus stop with that magnificent bundle of black hair billowing, voluminous and free in the wind.