The Old Man and the Street
Most afternoons the old man would take his walk through town. He would stroll idly, though with a gait and pace which readily betrayed his age to those he would pass before. The hours would winnow away in this same idle fashion, some days with a breeze blowing through the trees which had grown here, their years mirroring this man’s. Other days rain, other days a hard sun, and still other days nothing, or more truthfully those other days were too perfect to ever be worth writing about.
Perfect days are full of incomplete, and half thoughts. And if nothing ever comes of them but happiness, then all the better.
But the breezy days, they were always the most pensive. The wind whistled down the same streets as this man, sometimes through familiar haunts, sometimes breathing change. The casual observer would be unable to match the elderly man’s thoughts though, on days like this. A vacant lot would elicit a frown, for a house- and a family it once sheltered within- long gone. The large trees too, were gone. All things were gone but an empty lot, and the shadow of memory where there used to be shade. But things change, that is life, and this he knew. The great trees which inspired such awe in his childhood have been replaced by the progeny of their own seeds. Tiny saplings which sprouted so inauspiciously once so long ago- much like the man who now wobbles uncertainly beneath them- have become great trees of their own. Life is something like this, the old man thought. Life is a lot like this.
Just before the turn for home there is always one last stop. The grey-stone manse, three doors from the corner. When he got to the great house he would step halfway up the sidewalk towards the front door. He would stop there, and run headlong into a daydream. He remembered ever so many visits here as a child, and a world that was so different, and now so distant. He stood still so he could remember completely. If he shifted his weight just so, and leaned forward enough on the cane that has become to him so familiar, just for an instant he could forget the age in his bones, and zero in on the age in his mind.
He wondered about where she was now, and the two types of people that lived in the world he knew: The ones who wanted only enough from this world to be able to put up walls to hide behind, and the ones bold enough to run through them, for the sake of anything that was worth it. The wall of gray years and old age are entrenched firmly here, never to fall away. Not even the shadows.
Childhood remembered, just for a moment. Now on his way.
Perfect days are full of incomplete, and half thoughts. And if nothing ever comes of them but happiness, then all the better.
But the breezy days, they were always the most pensive. The wind whistled down the same streets as this man, sometimes through familiar haunts, sometimes breathing change. The casual observer would be unable to match the elderly man’s thoughts though, on days like this. A vacant lot would elicit a frown, for a house- and a family it once sheltered within- long gone. The large trees too, were gone. All things were gone but an empty lot, and the shadow of memory where there used to be shade. But things change, that is life, and this he knew. The great trees which inspired such awe in his childhood have been replaced by the progeny of their own seeds. Tiny saplings which sprouted so inauspiciously once so long ago- much like the man who now wobbles uncertainly beneath them- have become great trees of their own. Life is something like this, the old man thought. Life is a lot like this.
Just before the turn for home there is always one last stop. The grey-stone manse, three doors from the corner. When he got to the great house he would step halfway up the sidewalk towards the front door. He would stop there, and run headlong into a daydream. He remembered ever so many visits here as a child, and a world that was so different, and now so distant. He stood still so he could remember completely. If he shifted his weight just so, and leaned forward enough on the cane that has become to him so familiar, just for an instant he could forget the age in his bones, and zero in on the age in his mind.
He wondered about where she was now, and the two types of people that lived in the world he knew: The ones who wanted only enough from this world to be able to put up walls to hide behind, and the ones bold enough to run through them, for the sake of anything that was worth it. The wall of gray years and old age are entrenched firmly here, never to fall away. Not even the shadows.
Childhood remembered, just for a moment. Now on his way.
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