The first time I met Tanya, it was a bizarre experience. I was sitting in a coffee shop, reading a book whose name I still cannot recall, and sipping a coke. The mood was nonchalant. In a way I just wished to be left alone. The room was a simple, hipster coffee shop. A wall covered in posters, ads and flyers advertising another meaningless event that was to take place in the next month. The other walls were a dark mustard yellow. The barista looked ill- tempered, as if this was all just a simple passing by that she would not otherwise be involved in if it wasn’t for the fact she probably had nowhere else to go and she needed the money.
I looked around at the coffee shop, then to the window next to me. Outside it was raining, hard. I saw a figure running through the rain into the coffee shop, and burst through the doors in a loud, raucous fashion. Her manners matched that of a New Yorker City Girl, whose time and life had been lost to the city. She strolled right up to the barista, leaning her elbow on the counter.

“I’ll have a double tall mocha with a shot of espresso and extra sugar please.”
The barista nodded and turned away to begin the making of that stupid mocha. This girl was tall, dark and gorgeous. Eyes like sapphires, hair blacker than a night sky, skin like a Grecian goddess. I was not impressed. How could I? She was, in a sense generic. Her beauty was fleeting and with that her sense of self. It was clear that what she was built upon was as stable as sand in a windstorm. She looked around and spotted me. She smiled. I didn’t know what to make of it. Her eyes were gorgeous, and spoke as if they already knew me. They were striking and drew me in. I felt myself staring and quickly composed myself. She laughed and grabbed her coffee, then came to sit down at my table.

“So, what’s your name?” She asked.
“Tom.” I spoke.
“Do you know what Maya is?” She asked.
“No...” I wasn’t sure what kept me there, but I did, even though I was steadily becoming uncomfortable, “What is it?”
She grabbed my hands and said, “Let me show you”
She grinned and led me out of the cafe. We began talking and she was astounding.
I asked her after an hour, “So What is Maya?”
She looked at me and grinned, “I will show you on our next date. Let’s say, next Saturday, same place at noon?”

She walked off, leaving me in a sense of wonderment, and joy. This is how the next two years of our dating went. I would always ask at the end of each date, what is Maya? She always replied with another date, and never what Maya was. Even on the night I proposed, she never spoke of what Maya was. It was mystery that founded our relationship that day and it was what held us together.

On our wedding night, after our vows had been exchanged and we were in our car on our way to the reception, I asked once more, “Darling what is Maya?”
She smiled, as always, “Alright, I’ll tell you my sweet.”
She took a deep breath, as I waited in anxious anticipation, “Maya is-”

Suddenly our driver swerved, out of control into another driver. The windows broke, glass was everywhere. Both Tanya’s body and my own were flung forward into the seats in front of us causing Tanya to become unconscious and I to feel what true injuries could be as I heard my arm audibly snap on impact. I heard a whirring sound in the front of the car. My first instinct was to get out. I grabbed Tanya’s limp arm and made way for the broken window. The next part is harder to explain, for I myself have never truly been able to understand it in any other way except in a sense of amazement. I remember our bodies burning in the car. The excruciating pain and realization of what must have been death. I jolted up, and opened my eyes, looked around me to see the same mundane coffee shop that I had been in years before. I saw Tanya sitting across the way from me, still holding my eyes as she had been the day we met. I glanced down at my watch, still on my wrist. Not ten minutes had passed.

“But.. How?” I stuttered.
She smiled, “That,” she said, “Is Maya, my dear.”
She let go of my hands, and with that she stood up, grabbed her mocha, smiled, and left me to wonder what I had just experienced. Well, the answer to that is obvious.