OCTOBER 12, XXXX

4:26 p.m.

The mime. The girl. The performance.

I remember every second of it.

Not because it was beautiful.

Because it was a grotesque.

He was dressed entirely in white—painted face, gloves, beret—the whole Chaplin-esque fantasy. She looked like she worked in fashion, maybe Calvin Klein, something dowdy beneath the sophistication, likely from Connecticut.

He went through an entire routine, miming the courtship, the struggle, a little act of getting on one knee—without a word. There was even a mime friend pretending to be a wedding officiant.

People clapped.

She said yes, of course.
But her eyes said something else.

There was that flicker—regret, maybe even terror. Probably realized she was about to marry a man who willingly performed in public without speaking.

It made me nauseous.