The Dissident and the Sun

The dissident stands muddied and tired. He walks the uneven path with straightened conviction. The traffic noise sings around him and he settles into his skin. He passes the familiar sights and comfortable landmarks. He turns his trail down a side street and is met by a figure. The figure doesn't talk but he thinks she does and he chirps a friendly reply. An answer is given by the figure as she flows past. He turns and watches the figure depart, the drums in his head thumping and ratting a mad tattoo.
With the drum rattling gone, the day carried on, and the dissident left the pavement. Over the road and onto the grass, a wide open expanse, skipping over a path or two when he came to it. Milling around in a great arc and the steel above his head subsided. Never able to keep away from the bustle for long, he turned into the sweep, the sway and to and fro, the marching mass, as it ran like a conveyer of faces. Through a door, into a store and the gentle browsing begins. The eyes wander and trip over a sight. The sight of a figure. A familiar figure?
The drums began to tap in the distance, gradually building up their volume like an approaching train. The dissident looked for somewhere to hide, an instinctive reaction, and tried his best not to unsettle his head. The figure drifted closer, but still she did not see him. There were enough clothes racks and shinny shelves to help him blend, the constant buzz of beings helping his cause. She moved closer still. He tried his best to think like paint, to become part of the scenery and melt into the walls, a white boy on the white wash. He had noticed her in an instant, his body realising before his brain. The sight of her face from afar enough to squeeze his heart like a sponge. His skin crackled and shifted its nervous weight with alarming fervour, his blood thundering around his veins with exactly the same idea as to what to do with itself as he.
The unavoidable position left no room for his initial reactions to be fulfilled. The drums were thunderous explosions, the sound waves echoing off the inside walls of his skull. She turned and the air rippled, the tottering surrounds oblivious to the effect. Her hair it moved like she was underwater. All on the outside looked calm among him but for the symphony of clatter that coursed its way around his body. Her eyes looked up and the atmosphere froze, the air itself seemingly ceasing to be. A second past. No more than a second of time elapsed and he was held firmly in place for a year. It felt like even longer. Her eyes of forever held his face with soft hands that could not be shaken nor moved. The drums ceased. Everything ceased. And the one shinning thought that now filled his head was "what the bloody hell do I do now?"
"Hi."
"Hi."
Not knowing, then knowing. The strangeness was dispelled and the familiarity pitched.
"Didn't I see you this morning?" said she.
"Ah ... I believe you may have, yes," said he with his voice, while the rest of the dissident's internal capacities ignited and flamed, a gentle warmth now spreading everywhere.
"Looking for a new dress?" she said. His eyebrows darted together and confusion beset. He looked up. Then he looked around. While possessing eyes for naught but her, unbeknownst to him he had wandered into the women's clothing section on that floor of the department store.
"Ah - yeah - I'm just browsing, actually." Her face was painted in neutral tones, despite the obvious inference that the supremacy was with her. She could have chosen to wither him right there and then, but she did not. How can this be possible? he thought instantly. She stood out to him like a blazing lighthouse on a single dark hill in a single dark night. Not just beautiful, beautiful didn't cover it. He could have spent a lifetime writing that word over and over and over again down on endless sheets of paper, and still it would not match what he sought to now describe, to feebly put into words she which stood before him.