Unforgettable eyes

I was riding a Roadmaster bicycle with a huge can of milk on it when she flagged me down. "Two litres, please," she said, and I poured the milk in her red jug as the rays of the Saturday morning sun kissed our brows.

She paid me and said, "Thank you", and I shook my head and said, "No no no...I should be the one thanking you so much for buying from me."

 She smiled and our eyes met, directly. I saw that hers were beautiful. Not beautiful but unique, because they were eyes you cannot forget. I've forgotten her height and complexion and colour of the dress she was wearing but I've never forgotten the way those eyes of hers made me feel. 

They didn't make me feel butterflies in the tummy and they didn't make me weak in the knees. But they went with me that day and have stayed with me ever since. I see them in my dreams, I think about them in my solitary moments and when I meet a beautiful girl the first thing I do is look directly in her eyes to see whether her eyes are the eyes I fell in love with as a boy.

It was by the hand fate that a week after I encountered the girl with the unforgettable eyes, my father was transferred to a distant part of the country, and I went with him, never to see the girl again.

Five years ago I travelled back to that part of the country and asked everyone I met, "I'm looking for the girl with the most beautiful eyes in the world." But they gave me quizzical looks; like I was nuts or something. Only one old woman gave me a smile that revealed endless gaps in her mouth, and lifted my hopes that I would one day meet again the girl I met as a 15-year-old milk boy; the only one my heart beats after; the girl whose eyes possess the kind of beauty I've ever since failed to erase from my memories.