28 Days Later

A man approached me, speaking with unknown accent on a bright Sunday morning. He displayed his watch in front of me, as if I had asked for the time.

But instead, he asked me for the time.

"Could you do me a favour?" He blinked his eyes and asked.

"Sure." I shrugged.

"Which date is 28 days ago?"

I noticed there was a small square with the current date on his watch. It indicated 26th of October. With my well trained arithmetic I immediately threw an answer back to him without any hesitation, like playing squash.

"September 29th." I answered with smile, as if I just scored a point.

"No, no, no. Look..." the man took out his mobile phone and showed me a calendar on it. "You see, 28 days equal to 4 weeks. And could you count 4 weeks ahead from today?"

I looked into the calendar and carefully figured out the date 4 weeks earlier. I couldn't believe what's on my mind.

It's September 28th.

"I know you are puzzled too." The man slightly lifted his glasses and chuckled. "On September 28th I was told to come here 28 days later by a girl I love."

"So it's today?" I was real confused.

"I hope it is. So here I am, but she is not. I wish it's due to my bad mathematics, not anything else."

For not long he tapped my shoulder and just left. What's left behind were a sigh of relief and my silence. I stood there alone. And it felt like I just lost a squash game to nobody.

Strangely, I felt sad.