I Liken You to Elves

She had a pointed nose, he remembered that. And hair that hung down in front of her eyes. It moved back and forth. She had teeth, white, mostly, that were spaced neatly together and seemed to fit her mouth perfectly. Her ears stuck out from her long hair, her hair with the wave, and the bangs that hung in the front. She was elf-like. But he would never say this, not to her, but it was an easy way of describing her. No, to her face he might say she was...

But how to put it positively? He might say she was whimsical? Fantastical? Otherworldly? All of these seemed out of place, seemed wrong, any one word, they were far too big or small and not wholly right. Perhaps it was too hard to put into a single word, and perhaps that is why he chose a poor one. But he would think of ways to justify it, his choice of word, should the situation ever arise, should he ever blunder and let it pass his lips to her ear, sticking out from her hair. He thought of what he might say.

"Elves are fictional. They're made up. And because of this they can be as perfect as the author wants them to be. And they are. They're described, everywhere you find them, as beautiful, talented, young, striking, perfect. And they can be all these things, they can be perfect, because they are not real. They do not exist in this world. Though if they did, I believe they would be an awful lot like you. And so I liken you to elves, because in you I see beauty that I thought could never exist. Not in this world." Ethereal, he might say.

He remembered she had a way of looking down and looking up. When she laughed. She would look down and up, slightly, slightly more down and then slightly less up so—and perhaps this was by accident—she almost seemed to be giving him the come-hither. But we see what we want to see. But we see what's there, don't we?