Lumen - a story

The day I met Lumen was a little dramatic. I was studying in the library as usual when I heard the announcement that a blizzard was on the way. It was only 3pm on a Thursday in February. I lived quite close to campus, so I though just a bit longer in the warm and cozy law school library would not hurt. When I left the library, it was already past 6, and the blizzard was half way through. It had totally changed the landscape, dumping feet of snow every where. Wind and snow slashed down, and it was impossible to tell where the roads were. On a good day, it took me about half a hour to get to school from my apartment. I was hungry and wanted badly to get back to my apartment. So I pressed on walking against the wind and snow. It was exhausting to walk in the knee deep snow with a heavy backpack. A couple of times I almost stepped into the road side drain ditch. There was not a soul on the road, no cars at all. From sky down the whole world was swirled with snow. I did not notice the car in the ditch until I was very close to it and there was a figure waiving to me. I stopped. The man approached me and asked "Can I borrow your cell phone, please. My car is stuck in the snow." I said I don't have a cell phone. The man asked whether there was a public phone to use nearby. My answer was to either walk to the school, which is about 40 minutes away in this weather, or, I hesitated to offer this, but again in this weather, to make the phone in my apartment, which was about probably 20 minutes away. He looked towards the school and back to me, said if not too much trouble, he would like to follow me back to my place. So we walked on in silence. The moment I inserted the key, the door was swung open and came Janelle, my roommate's crispy voice: "I was worried. How did you come back?" She stopped and saw the person behind me. I explained the situation and she led the man to the phone in the living room. Janelle's boy friend Mark was also there. He kept darting his eyes from me and that man, meaning, what is wrong with you? what if Janelle and I were not home?

His quickly dropped his guard when the man after making the phone calls introduced himself as Lumen. Under the light, I got a better look at him. He was tall, had brown eyes. In the next 2 hours, I made coffee, instant noodles with boiled egg, Janelle continued working on her assignment, Ian and Mark sat in the living room chatting about football and politics and other stuff. The tow truck came finally at 11:30. Outside, the snow storm had passed its prime.

The next day, I did not have class. I decided to stay in and finish my reading assignments. Lumen's phone call came at 6pm. He thanked me heartily for the help and the most delicious instant noodles he ever had, then asked whether he could treat me a dinner Saturday night, say 6:00pm? It took me a few seconds to say yes, because my mind was busy searching the words that Mark made the previous night. Decent, yes, Mark said he seemed to be a decent guy.

That is the beginning for me and Lumen.