Little Talks

We had been dating for close to a year, or at least we had met each other almost a year ago. It took a few months for any labels to develop, but the weekend we met was the first of infinite consecutive weekends together. Anyway, this particular night we wound up in a dark, moody bar not  far from his townhouse. I had never been inside this one yet despite our thorough exploration of the different drinking venues in the area almost each and every weekend. The darkness might have been accentuated by a thick haze I had been developing for the past 12 hours, starting with our "pregame" lunch before the beer festival.

Of Monsters and Men's "Little Talks" came wafting into the room, buoyed by the thick atmosphere of fairy lights and my own pleasant buzz. I complained to him that as much as I liked the song, it reminded me of a very irritating person from their country of origin.

"It is a good song, though," he said fairly, always pragmatic and just. A sudden grin took over his usually placid face. "We should sing it karaoke some time."

"You'd sing karaoke?" I said skeptically.

"Sure!" he chirped, as if it was an obvious proposal and as if he was not the most introverted person I had ever met in my life.

Two years later, we were newly weds on our third (third? third.) night of marriage. We had been wandering the bars of San Francisco between Union Square and Chinatown. The wind and rain had driven us into a swanky coffee shop that, like many other hip establishments in the city, seemed to only play "indie" hits from five years previous at the most recent. Ladytron's "International Dateline" gave way to "Little Talks" as we decided to start commuting to the next bar.

We followed a very stylish chihuahua and his man-bunned handler out onto the sidewalk and back into the solid wall of wet dog smell that seemed to permeate the entire bay area. "Little Talks" still lingered in my head.

"Do you remember saying we should karaoke that song? I think it was after our first beer fest together."

He chuckled, "Yeah, and we still can. I think I know the lyrics better than most people."

I started singing gently:

"Cuz though the truth may vary this-"
and he chimed in with me,
"ship will carry our bodies safe to shore."

We linked arms, our free hands holding our matching cold-brew coffees as we trundled down the hill to our next destination.