The Boy with the Kind Brown Eyes

“Would you like to join us in a game of volleyball?”

I looked up at the gangly teenagers before me. Both were tall and thin, and had kind brown eyes and shoulder-length straight brown hair.

“I’m Alex and this is Greg,” one of them added, by way of introduction.

I followed them to the gym which housed a volleyball court. We enjoyed an hour or so of punching the volleyball across the net. Alex moved quickly across the court, and Greg moved slowly and gracefully. I was a bit worried because of my myopia but even I couldn’t miss a volleyball.

Alex and Greg weren’t like some of the competitive boys at school who gave you a hard time if you missed the ball during a match.

It was 1978, and we were attending the annual Japanese language camp for senior secondary school students. What I enjoyed about this camp was that you had to speak Japanese whenever possible for the whole weekend. I was studying Japanese at high school and relished the chance of putting my hard-won language skills into practice.

After the weekend of language practice, I returned to school and the regimen of studying for the finals, and by 1979 I found myself at Adelaide University majoring in Japanese. The same gangly teenagers I had met at the Japanese language camp the year before were there.

Alex was studying Engineering and Greg was studying Science, but somehow they managed to fit Japanese into their study schedule. In those days, there was ample funding for university courses, and classes were held daily. Alex,Greg, and I became firm friends, and on weekends we sometimes played tennis.

After graduating from university, we went our separate ways. Greg became a teacher of Japanese, and Alex went to work as an Engineer first in the Netherlands, and then Japan. After that he went to California to study Artificial Intelligence, or AI. It was the ‘80s when few people knew what AI was. Meanwhile, I continued my studies of Japanese in Tokyo.

Wherever I happened to be, Alex and I regularly exchanged letters, aerograms, and postcards. I met up with Greg whenever I came back to Australia.

When Alex was in California, he invited me to visit him. In 1989 I flew to San Francisco as part of a longer journey. When I arrived at the airport Alex came to meet me. I looked up at his tall slim figure – he was no longer the gangly teenager, but he hadn’t changed much.

By that time Alex was living in La Honda in the Santa Cruz Mountains and commuting to Silicon Valley for work. He gave up his bedroom for me and slept on the sofa. He took me to the campus of his beloved Stanford University from which he had recently obtained his Master’s degree.

On Monday morning he had to return to work, and I was to continue on my travels. He drove me down the winding hills from La Honda and headed into San Francisco. He dropped me off at the airport bus stop and continued his commute to work.

Little did I know, that would be the last time I saw him for thirty-one years. Our correspondence ceased. Maybe Alex’s life was taking a major turn, away from his old friends, and towards his new career in Silicon Valley. Or maybe he had found love, and staying in touch with his old friends was less of a priority.

***

I relocated to Japan for work, but continued to meet Greg whenever I returned to Australia. Greg told me that Alex had eventually returned to Australia with his young American family.

Meanwhile I married and had two children, and took my family with me to work in Japan. My daughters continued their education in Japan until Year Ten, and then one by one, returned to Australia to complete their education. My marriage broke down, and I found myself living alone in Japan.

Fast forward to 2020. I returned to Adelaide to visit my adult children. Greg rang me. “Alex has invited us to his place for breakfast. He wants to reconnect with his old friends.”

“Oh, wow! Definitely! When?”

“Next Saturday morning. Are you free?”

“Sure. Send me the address.”

The next Saturday I drove to the address that Greg had provided. I knocked on the door and heard an invitation to enter in an unfamiliar booming voice. I did as bidden, and saw Greg perched on a stool, and Alex at work cooking behind the breakfast bar.

Both came towards me to greet me and give me a brotherly hug. I had seen Greg over the years so I didn’t notice any changes in his appearance.

Despite the interval of thirty-one years, Alex had the appearance of the young man I had bidden farewell to in 1989, except, incredulously, he was even thinner than I had remembered him. His T-shirt was riddled with holes. Alex was now a widower.

“How about avo on toast?” he asked me.

“Certainly!”

“And I have had an excess of feijoas this year so I have made feijoa bread.”

“Sounds yummy!” I smiled, even though I didn’t know what feijoas were. It turned out that they were a tangy South American fruit.

Alex, Greg, and I talked non-stop for the next few hours, and in the early hours, Greg and I decided to excuse ourselves.

“I’m going sailing for a couple of weeks with my sister, but I hope we can have breakfast together again when I come back.”

A month later Alex extended an invitation to Greg and me to come and have breakfast at his place. I turned up as I had promised, but Greg did not make an appearance. Alex cooked me breakfast, and we talked for several hours, each sitting at the far end of each of the sofas which were arranged in an L shape in his living room.

After that day, I received regular invitations to visit Alex, but rather than breakfast invitations, they became dinner invitations. I had planned to return to Japan before the semester began, but there was a pandemic and the international borders were closed.

Because there was little time difference between South Australia and Japan, I conducted my classes in Japan via Zoom. Alex regularly invited me to his place, and we continued to sit at the far end of each of the two sofas. 

One day, after hours of discussion, Alex suddenly asked me a question. “Do you think we have chemistry?”

“Yes,” I answered quickly.

He got up from the sofa and sat on my lap. After a few minutes he started to pull himself away.

“Don’t stop!” I pleaded.

Alex continued to sit on my lap for a few minutes more. Then he sat next to me, grabbed my hand, and squeezed each finger in turn from the base extending to the tip. I fell in love with Alex with the passion of youth, even though I was in my late fifties. I never did return to Japan.

***

Alex continues to draw me, like tides drawn by the moon. Some have suggested that this is because of the imprinting in the university classroom that occurred during daily Japanese classes in our youth. I am not sure that we would have fallen for this heady romance if we hadn’t spent those many hours in the classroom together.

Our shared memories made us like time travelers revisiting events of the past, with a fresh lens. As I look at Alex now that we are both in our early sixties, I do not see an older man, but rather a tall gangly teenager with kind brown eyes.

My brain is in 2025, but my heart is in 1979.

---

Need more reminders of romantic love that overcomes the passage of time and space? May these fill your heart with dreams of love to stay and love yet to be.

• I Wish… – a Love Poem
• Love Me Today, a Love Poem
• A Rose for My Love – Historical Romance Fiction
• The Wilderness Between Us Part 1 & Part 2 – Wholesome Romance Fiction
• Octet – Romantic Hanukkah Fiction
• In the Mediterranean at Midnight – Wholesome Romance
• By the Light of the Moon – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4 – Romance Fiction