i is nothing without e

I'm getting the bus after a show I've done, nothing special there, yapping on the phone like some buy-sell wastrel when I walk into this beautiful blonde girl. Thunk. And I freeze because I know I know her from somewhere and that somewhere I know is eluding me. But I'm still yapping on the phone this whole time so we exchange glances and not much else until she gets off. Mere days later I'm on the tube travelling down to a show, and she slips in at Kings Cross dressed to the nines. Hi, she says, I'm Helen, she says, wasn't it you on that bus last week? Well, surely, I'm done here, a doublechance meet and greet... But no, this is Chapeeko, she says and introduces me to what appears to be her boyfriend/partner/lover/whoever. I smile at him weakly. Chapeeko? What is he, a budgie? I pull out my book, but she's only just got started. She wants to tell me where I know her from. I don't want to listen, but I have to listen, cos she's already started to tell, and she tells me of a summer's day, a picnic, where we all met, Chapeeko included, and I realise... well fuck, e. was there too. Turns out, for me, it was one of the happiest days e. and I spent together. One of the happiest days full stop. Well that's just swell. But maybe there's meaning behind this chance meeting, cos all I can think is what the hell have I done. And just as I have been lost these past months without her, for all my loose talk, you know what? Thinking of her settles me now. Sometimes it is enough just to know what you have lost, to really, really know; that can make all the difference.
And you can start to find your way home.