Swans

I never got why people find swans so beautiful, but who cares? I'm not a big fan of a lot of things. Wilma loves them. When we first went to the Park, she shrieked, ``Look, the swans!'' Fuck, she lived her entire life in this city and she probably had seen those swans dozens of times. I gave a practiced smile, the ``woman-saying-something-silly'' one, which she didn't even bother to see. ``Don't you love swans?'' No, I don't, but I just shut up and she didn't seem to care or notice. ``They are so magnificent.'' She went on babbling over their mating rites and this and that, saying that they were so romantic and all that crap. I nodded. Things we do for women.

After a while, I resigned to the fact that I'd probably marry her. One day I was walking and passed by a jewelry, that's when I decided to marry her. You know those awful chick flicks, with a guy that makes a corny proposal to a girl? I hate those flicks--well, what guy likes it? And they never show when the guy decides to marry the girl--unless he suddenly realizes that the girl he didn't give a shit for the entire movie is the one.

In real life, there is one day when you consider it seriously for first time, the question pops in your mind, ``should I marry her?'' Then you can talk to a close friend or shrug your shoulders. And then you just decide to do it. The first time the thought occurred to me was one morning that I woke up by her side and she was lying naked, and I thought that it would be great to wake like that everyday. Very different from the time I was awaken by a girl giving me a blow job and thought the same thing.

So, what the hell, I thought, I entered the shop and asked to see some rings. The guy started to show me tons and tons of rings, and I was soon tired. ``I'll be back another day,'' I said. One day I resigned to blow all that money and to spend my time choosing one. To me, everything was settled.

But Wilma wouldn't like the ``by the way, I spend a whole afternoon picking this ring. Hope you like it. Wanna marry me?'' that I wanted say. Swans, I thought. There's a ballet about swans. She'll like that. But the fucking swan dies at the end. Shit, I should have known that, but I didn't. Wilma cried, and cried, and cried.

I took her home. The following day I gave her the ring, unpretentiously, no fancy ballets and dinners, no bullshit, just what really matters. But I kneeled, and tried to be as romantic as I could. Maybe she is telling her friends right now that I should have been more romantic (or, more likely, they are saying that to her), maybe she'll think that I didn't have the guts last night and almost backed off. Fuck it, she said yes.