Old Man — Waiting

One late August, after hiking all afternoon under the cool shade of a broadleaf canopy, I chanced upon a run-down, deserted halt which had no ticket office, and where, outside, last year’s autumn leaves had not been swept away, but had drifted up against the old brick wall like snow in winter winds. I sat on a bench to rest, stretching out my legs, aware now that I was not alone, for there before me was an old man who sat on a similar bench on the opposite platform. Perhaps he was looking at me. I could not tell, for the evening sun was reflecting off the circular lenses of his old-fashioned spectacles. His weathered hands were clasped between his knees, as if perhaps a moment before he had been praying, and had simply lowered his arms to rest them once his prayer was over. He wore thick-soled shoes, which I felt would more than easily bear the slight weight of the old fellow across those miles whose traversing would take him to his final days, now not so far off. (We must all, one day, put on our last ever pair of shoes.)

The lenses flashed as he turned his head to look to see if the train was coming. It was not. All was silent, still, serene — quiet and calm. The lenses flashed back to their former position, and I presume the old man studied me as I had studied him. What did he see? Someone younger, certainly. He saw my hiking stick, my canvas bag filled with unknown treasures and essential provisions — my water bottle, the sandwich that I was keeping for later, my map — and my fake straw hat that was so well made you couldn’t tell that the straw was actually plastic.

Again the lenses flashed, then flashed again as he stood to take small, unsteady steps towards the platform’s edge, where he stood still to gaze along the line, and something about his stance spoke of impatience or anxiety or yearning. A minute later, he returned to his bench, and I fancied that I heard a sigh, faint and forlorn and so sad that I shivered.

For there was to be no train, not now, not any more. The station had closed years and years ago, and the line had been ripped up, and where the track had been, tall grass and even a few shrubs and saplings grew untended. Yet here was the old man, awaiting his train. He wanted to journey back to the past, to his youth, I wondered. He knew he could not, yet he came here anyway, and re-enacted his waiting of long ago, of sitting, and looking, and looking, and standing up to look again. And to where had he journeyed? His love? His future wife, now lost? (To his future, in some sense, to be sure.)

Everyone’s journey must end here, at this halt, or somewhere very like it. We must all, I know, look up for a train that cannot come any more, when we will have a sense that instead of hoping for future things, we will be better served by treasuring our memories. I think I will myself wish and wish to go back, and wish to craft a life that had fewer mistakes and greater merit. At that moment, I was so keenly aware of my time running out.

Moving as slowly as I could, I took out my map, and a minute later, moving just as slowly, I quietly departed.