Mockba

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Mockba was the most celebrated nightclub in town; though certainly not the best one: its long admission queue finally led to a costly local densely permeated by cigarette smoke, sticky puddled with beer and partially carpeted in broken glasses, featuring a limited and stifling dance floor and an invariably bad-tempered staff. However, out of one of those inexplicable whims of people, it was the favourite chicks’ pick, and therefore also mine. And, after all, its reputation might not have been altogether unjustified: I used to be lucky there, and my expectations were seldom disappointed.
That was my last night in the club. A few days later I was bound to leave the town for good.
Posted in one of the strategic corners, liquor glass in hand, I kept watch on the newcoming concave-gendered elements and the transit of the already present ones.
Having overlooked her before, the woman appeared suddenly in the focal point of my retine. She wasn’t neither the prettiest nor the youngest, but she was good looking and, her eyes beaming with a natural smile of their own, surely she was one of those rare persons who have an ineffable something around their countenance or their bearing, the quintessence of sympathy, an inborn elegance in demeanour, the ultimate sparkle of intelligence, a something that lends them an unmistakable and irresistible allure and makes them conspicuously outstand the others.
Nonetheless, as she was in the company of a man, I quickly consigned her to oblivion.
However, after a while, when passing this couple on my way to the dance floor, I heard my own voice unexpectedly saying to her: ‘you’ve got something special’.
‘Thank you! So you do!’ was the inmediate reply. And a broad smile on her mouth underlined the one that her eyes already denoted.
Later on, we came across again. She was now by herself, and this time it was she who, checking her pace, endowed me with a resplendent expression of gratitude:
‘I wanted to thank you for what  you told me before’ she said.
‘Oh! I wasn’t flattering you in vain’ answered I, ‘but just loudly set forth what my mind was thinking. I believe you have this exceptional something, this natural radiance, this charismatic glamour onto your visage; a kind of luster that outstands. Besides, you look straight into the people’s eyes, instead of dodging their stares…’
‘One thousand heartfelt thanks’ she almost shouted. ‘Yes, it’s true that our nation suffers from an excess of bashfulness. But please don’t ever stop doing what you’ve done. Please don’t stop asserting those thoughts!’
I had never met a lady so indebted by a compliment, and I wondered, had she never been told something similar before?
We still talked for a little while, enough for learning our names, and at last we heartily shook hands, longer than necessary, until the end of our conversation, thus prolonging a contact that had already turned into a caress.
‘May you have a beautiful life’, she bade me farewell; and, before parting, she sent me on her fingers a warm kiss that I couldn’t trap in time: it got lost among the smoke, the music and the clamor of Mockba.
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