Vignette

It wasn't particularly a planned visit to the library, more like one of opportunity, but once he pulled into the parking lot, he smiled when he saw her car parked a few spaces away.

Leisurely checking out the CDs and DVDs, he finally set about finding the reference materials he'd come for, stuff he couldn't find on Google, and for about twenty minutes he was engrossed in his task.

 And then he saw her.

She was more than forty feet away, utterly unaware of his presence.  Yet his pulse quickened as she walked in his direction.  She was smiling and chatting spontaneously - he'd always loved her smile - but because of a low dividing wall and some indoor plants, he couldn't see with whom.  Still, he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

At about fifteen feet, their eyes met.

He smiled at her, and she at him.  She crossed around the low wall, and they briefly made amiable conversation.  But in the moment that it ended, he was consumed as a great wave of sadness washed over him.

Her smile - the one she gave him - certainly was pretty enough, but it wasn't the same natural, carefree smile he'd seen just minutes earlier, to the unknown, unseen stranger.  No, it was more...cordial.  Perhaps even transactional, in the way a pretty college coed might smile at him at the shoe store, hoping to sell him some socks and polish to go along with his new wingtips.

And in a small way, he felt his heart harden, just enough to be perceptible.  Another pebble - or even a grain of sand - around the chamber walls, troweled into place, as in Poe's Cask of Amontillado.