The man of few words

Mama Elena sent Tita to the kitchen to get something for the guests. Pedro 'happened' to be walking by at that moment and he offered his help. Tita rushed off to the kitchen without a word. His presence made her extremely uncomfortable. He followed her in, and she quickly sent him off with one of the trays of delicious snacks that had been waiting on the kitchen table.

She would never forget the moment their hands accidentally touched as they both slowly bent down to pick up the same tray.

That was when Pedro confessed his love.

'Señorita Tita, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to be alone with you to tell you that I am deeply in love with you. I know this declaration is presumptuous, and that it's quite sudden, but it's so hard to get near you that I decided to tell you tonight. All I ask is that you tell me whether I can hope to win your love.'

'I don't know what to say .... give me time to think.'

'No, no, I can't! I need an answer now; you don't have to think about love; you either feel it or you don't. I am a man of few words, but my word is my pledge. I swear that my love for you will last for ever. What about you? Do you feel the same way about me?'

'Yes!'

Yes, a thousand times.

.....Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Esquivel's first 19 pages was torture. Unlike the clarity and flow in Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Of Love and Other Demons, Esquivel's style loses out by a far mile. I was tempted to give up after around 10 pages. I'm glad I didnt.

Perhaps what I felt was lacking in terms of structure, organisation and clarity, she makes up for it with emotions and more emotions. I've learnt not to generalize but sometimes, just sometimes, I cant help but feel that women tend to let their emotions do the talking. But then again, I'm pretty sure that for every fault I find in a woman, women will find 5 more in a man. And perhaps, it's safe to say that it's a battle that us men should try to avoid at all cost.

However, Esquivel "spoke" to me through the quote above. I loved it the first time I read it. I think I'm starting to learn to set aside the "flaws" and overflowing emotions of female writers, and appreciate the true meaning behind the veil of words.

Just a thought though: Would the quote above work? What do you think?