I fell in love today.

She was on the bus and smelt like strawberries. It’s silly, in retrospect, that the first thing I noticed was a scent, but there you go.

When I turned to see her I was stunned. She was… perfect. Flawless skin as dark as ebony, dark as night. Long hair falling heavy and perfectly straight. Clothes black and concealing a perfect hourglass figure. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was perfect.

When she saw me she looked a little surprised. Like someone getting caught doing something embarrassing, but she was acting normal. Just riding on the bus with me. I smiled, she smiled back, awkwardly.

This wasn’t normal behaviour. I’m not a great looking guy, kinda a bit overweight, a bit oversized. A lot hairy. Beautiful women don’t smile awkwardly at me. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

Turns out I missed my chance. Next stop, she got off. But that’s when the strange thing happened.

There had been an accident. It looked like a car had tried to run a red light. It came speeding into the intersection and clipped a motorcyclist. The motorcycle flipped, smashing the rider into the ground as the rogue car started to swerve, too late, and slammed into the side of an SUV. The larger vehicle hadn’t tipped, by some miracle, but the momentum of the rogue had slammed it off course and into a traffic light.

So it was understandable, then, when no one noticed this beautiful women walking along the street. It was only when she walked towards the motorcyclist that things started getting strange. No policeman stopped her as she walked forwards. Neither of the paramedics noticed as she stepped up to their sides as they attempted to resuscitate. Neither noticed as she leant forwards and kissed the cyclists forehead. They didn’t look at her, but that’s the moment, the exact second, they stopped attempting to bring him back.

No one saw her, no one but me.

She walked to the SUV and touched the lips of the driver, kissed the lips of a passenger, ran a perfect finger along the arm of a bystander clipped with shrapnel. No one saw her take the hand of the driver of the rogue car. Everyone saw them die. Each one died.

Our bus had been held up by a cop as he directed traffic around the accident. A wave of the hand and we drove off. She stood there, looking at me, still holding the limp hand of the dead driver. As a fallen traffic light obscured her in my sight for a second, I lost sight of her, as if she was never there.

I was shaken. In truth I had started to question my own sanity in many regards. Then I turned around.

She was back on the bus.

She was standing where she was when I first smiled at her. Looking closer, she was even more beautiful than I had first thought. Especially with that shy smile. She walked up to me, barely meeting my eyes.

We talked. I told her about myself, she looked rapt. It’s not often I have someone willing to listen to all my old stories, and never one so perfect. She introduced herself as the angel of death and mentioned I was the only mortal ever to have seen her. Conversation became slightly strained.

So you can see where I’m coming from when I say that I had to do something to fill up that empty silence.

I asked her out to dinner.