SHE WAS WALKING

this is a love story, surrounded by events unexpected and not necessarily wanted:
They looked at each other while both slowly lowered their necks closer to the table-top, without blinking. It seemed they were imitating two geese sizing-up each other while deciding if the circumstances warranted a fight. She broke first and giggled despite her efforts to the contrary. He joined her. She imitated an angry cat’s hiss while wrinkling her nose. He let out a belly whopper. She resumed her expressionless face. He stopped his laughter and openly pleaded: “please don’t do that. You already let the cat out of the bag!” In response she put her elbows on the tabletop, interlaced her fingers, placed her chin on them and looked at his face while thinking ‘he has beautiful eyes.’ That thought softened her own face, causing him to admire her. He began: “Once there was, once there was not; in the times past, when the sifter was in the straw; when the flea was the town crier; and the camel, the barber; ‘tıngır-mıngır’ while I was gently rocking my father’s cradle; there was this little pretty girl.” She was puzzled, briefly knitted her brows, and then waited for an explanation. He provided it: “I once heard a story-teller begin her tales with that admonition. It is up to the audience whether what they heard is agreeable to them.” He followed that with: “Later I saw that in a book called The Bald Boy Keloglan and the Most Beautiful Girl in the World.” “So, what is the story?” He snapped the trap shut: “You first!” “I do not even know your name.” “What better reason to begin?”