LIFE
Three Old Men
Our life depends on how we perceive time
For a while, I had been treasure-hunting for a story that could unfold in the past, present, and future simultaneously. Luckily, it only took me a few years to realize my approach was half-witted at best.
It usually takes a lifetime.
Instead of looking for one story to encompass everything, I took three different ones, each plucking its unique string of time.
Past
“I used to make carpets,” said the café owner, wiping crumbs from a very small table.
Everything was covered in carpets. Large, small, beautiful, and ugly. Dusty, too. One of the walls wasn’t really a wall but a thick layer of hanging rugs and carpets. I found it out the hard way by leaning on it.
Trying to wipe water from my sweater, I did my best not to smile at the fact the owner used to make carpets.
You don’t say.
Bailing on the table-cleaning duties, he ran to the kitchen and brought back a giant book. You usually find books this big in your grandmother’s cabinet or in a museum. This one probably belonged to the latter, as the first entry dated 1986.
“I collect it here, every carpet I’ve sold,” said the owner, carefully flipping page after page. “Sometimes, I open it up and remember.”
What followed was a life story of selling carpets throughout decades. His products found homes in America, China, and Japan. There were entries from now non-existing countries, like Yugoslavia and the USSR.
The man remembered every note, could recall it without even looking, almost dreaming of that time. Some of them had photos. As years went by on the pages, entries became less frequent. We started skipping months, then years. The last note was from 2009, teamed up with a tiny photo of the owner, now an old man, in an almost empty room that used to be a shiny carpet store.
“Times changed. I closed the store and opened this café,” he took a look around. It wasn’t really a café but a living room with some plastic tables. Everything seemed to be falling apart and decaying.
“I still have this book to visit my memories.”
A man, living in his past, lost sight of the present and rejected any future. He covered himself in a warm blanket of old pages with memories. Every carpet, hanging from the wall, was a window to a different age.
There he stood, looking through them, waving to his younger self.
Present
I saw this couple every day. A man and his wife came early in the morning with a fishing rod. The hook flew to the horizon, landed with a splash, and the couple sat there, by the sea.
From time to time, the tip of the rod started to dance and jiggle. They never kept the fish.
All other fishermen preferred a different spot. It was much more suitable for fishing, and crawling with naïve, hungry sea bass and bluefish. But the couple came here, to the rocky precipice, suitable only for rock-jumping and reading with a stunning view.
As our kitchen window opened to this cliff, I was blessed with a chance to observe this couple every day. Sometimes they were reading a newspaper or having lunch. There were days when the man smoked his pipe, and the woman laughed at his jokes.
My neighbors told me they had been coming here for decades. Even after moving to another house far from the cliff, they still drove here every day to sit and fish. That was until one day a man started coming alone.
I finally decided to join him. He was nice, and my barbaric intrusion into his meditation zone was met with a smile. Surprisingly, this cliff wasn’t special or dear to him. It was just a cliff.
When he lived here with his wife, they enjoyed some fishing to start a new day. For them, it was a way to feel present, to connect with the “now.” His wife got sick and couldn’t drive to the cliff anymore. But she still insisted he go because it was a daily ritual.
The man never cared for tomorrow, nor did he tell me anything about his past. He was not the one to fall into nostalgic bliss, preferring to live today. His carpe diem had one rule, though.
You need at least something stable in this life of turbulent changes.
If you have a place to sit for an hour, read, or just connect with the day — do it. It is when you no longer have the ability to feel present that you are truly lost.
Future
My father was a janitor in a bank. An honest job, but we never had much. Not that we wanted much. When you grow up poor, you don’t know how to want things.
One summer day he came home very excited. I’ve never seen him so happy. He was waving his arms, smiling, buzzing around my mother like a bee.
“It is the future! I’ll show Sami tomorrow!” I heard coming from the kitchen.
The next day he took me to work. I never liked the bank. It was too busy. The manager, Mr. Atkins, was very strict and possessed a frightening ability to turn red in a second.
I remember taking a candy from a bowl once, and he got angry with me.
“I’ll let it slide this time, but candies are for customers only!” he yelled.
But my father wanted to show me something incredible, real magic.
“Look, Sami, look! People built this. Not some aliens, but people like you and me,” he said, pointing at a metal box in the wall. I stood there, blinking cluelessly.
“See,” my father continued. “This man has a special card. He puts it into this box. A clever machine knows it’s his card, and it gives him money! Any time of day or year, be it snow, rain, or burning sun. Imagine, son, only imagine how you can find these machines everywhere in the world. One day you will fly away. In the lands of wild animals and peculiar dresses, you will find this machine. Just like home, one minute, and you have money in your hands! Think about how machines like this one can connect us, become a universal meeting point, a piece of familiar ground.”
Back then I didn’t know I was looking at one of the first ATMs. All I saw were tears in my father’s eyes. Tears of joy and sorrow.
My father kept saying he was too old and too poor for the future. However, he was truly proud that my brothers and I were going to witness incredible things humanity was about to create.
“Always keep your eyes open for the new, sons,” he used to tell us.
He passed away ten years later, still a janitor in the same bank. A man can die, but his lessons never will. I was among the first people to open a credit card. And I’ve been looking out for the future ever since, just like my father wanted me to.
We were lucky to observe the future. You are lucky to live in one.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this story, you can always follow me for more. Maybe somebody will even give you a cookie. Who knows, the world is full of surprises.
