In a forthright move, I asked the girl I met at the bar if she would sleep with me.
She took a moment to consider, before replying that she would.
“But,” she added, “only if you can guess my name.”
“Sure,” I replied.
“And you only get one guess,” she also added.
“Sure,” I again replied, before guessing her name in one.
A moment of shock registered by response of her raised eyebrows. But she kept her side of the bargain and slept with me that same night.
Guessing her name wasn’t tricky at all. I already knew it. She used to get the same train as me on the way to school. I could’ve thrown in her surname too, if she wanted.
Even though I recognised her, she clearly hadn’t recognised me. If she ever knew I existed.
It didn’t feel right to not confess that I knew her, and should probably have done so before we slept together. Just as I was about to, while we were still in bed, she spoke first.
“I can guess your name,” she said, before telling me my name.
I’m not sure exactly how my shock registered externally, but register it did.
Hearing the fullness of a single syllable had never sounded as good.
‘How did you do that?” I asked, scruffling my hair.
“I remember you,” she said. “We used to get the same train.”
If only I’d known.
If only I knew then, how different my life might have been.
I’d been giving more thought, lately, to the simulation hypothesis, and things like this only served to epitomise it.
But there was no way I was giving thought to any of that while I was in bed with her. There would be plenty of time later for all that.
There were more pressing things at hand.
“Would you like a Wagon Wheel?” I said, sliding out of bed and heading to the kitchen.
vss #80
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