Only You Can See Me

There once was a small village near the sea. In this village lived a young man. Now this man was something of an outcast in the village because he had a disfigured face. When he would walk down the street, the townspeople would ignore him and look away. After passing, the man would overhear some of the townspeople whispering and murmuring...most likely about his face. Eventually, it got to the point where the man rarely left his house on the far edge of town except to walk down to the seashore where he would sit alone for hours at a time.

One fine fall day, a young woman moved into the little village by the sea. She was very beautiful and quickly became the talk of the town. Everyone clamored for her attention. Potential suitors would call daily at her door. But all this hoopla was for naught for the young woman quietly went about her daily business.

One day after completing her daily chores, the young woman walked down to the seashore to get away from the hubbub in the town. As she walked on the beach, the woman noticed a figure sitting on the sand far in the distance. The woman continued walking and eventually came within 20 yards of the person, whom she could now see was a man. In fact, it was the very same young man who was wont to sit alone on the beach for hours. However, the woman did not recognize the man for she had never seen him before. As she neared, the man began to write something in the sand with his finger. The woman became curious, and she moved closer to see what the writing said. However, the writing was quite small, so she had to move even closer. The woman mused to herself that it was odd that the man had not looked up or moved his attention away from the sand.

Now less than a yard away, the woman quietly knelt down beside the man and read what he had written: "Only you can". The woman thought for a moment and then asked aloud, "Can what?" Without turning to look at the woman, the man continued writing. A few seconds later, the woman read silently to herself: "see me". The woman sat down, and as she did so, the man slowly turned his face to her and smiled. The woman looked into his eyes, smiled, and wrote in the sand with her own finger: "Only you can show me who you are".

For the next five hours, the man and woman wrote in the sand and shared stories and the innermost parts of themselves. Finally, as the sun met the horizon, the woman placed her hand on the man's hand and gently squeezed. Then, in the fading pinkish glow of dusk, with the woman's hand still on his own, the man wrote one last thing: "I have been waiting all my life to be seen". The woman squeezed the man's hand again and moved it to write: "by you". The two new friends then looked once again into each other's eyes, smiled, embraced, and shared a kiss.