Future

There are places which are good for just sitting and watching
people. This is one such place. Hundreds of people crowded onto the
pavements, all pushing and jostling past one other, each taking utmost
care not to acknowledge anybody else.

And then there's the old man. This gnarled tree of a man staggers
forwards, each step requiring concentration and effort of Olympian
proportions. Leaning heavily on his stick, he moves one foot carefully
before him, sliding it across the ground. There is a pause, and I feel
like I can see his life slowly ebbing away, seeping out across the
pavement, the end drawing a little nearer, another wrinkle appearing on
his wizened face. That face...a history of his life, carved directly
into the skin.

Everybody else rushes past him, some knocking into him, slowing his
progress yet further, taking another few years off his life. And yet he
struggles on, footstep after slow, painstaking footstep. He stares down
at the tarmac of the road for a while, before looking slowly to his
left and right. The traffic roars on past.

People dart between the cars and trucks and vans, running swiftly to
the opposite side of the road. The old man stands patiently, biding his
time, waiting for the right moment. His eyes close. He breathes deeply
and calmly. Then his eyelids slide open and he moves one foot forward,
over the kerb and out into space. He tilts forwards, falls the distance
to the road, and steadies himself.

I nervously fiddle with Cairn's phone, moving it about in my hand,
flipping it between my fingers, opening and closing it.

I sense that there is something special, something important, to this
moment. This frail old man...so bold, so confident to just step out
into the road, into the never-stopping, never-pausing, never-thinking
world. He nods to every driver that stops for him, and ignores those
that do not. This man has no illusions. He has no cloaks, no barriers,
no expectations. His life is spent. He has done everything he ever
wanted to do, and has been everywhere he ever wanted to go. He has seen
the world and experienced the world, and the world is now his. No ego,
no image, no false motives or hidden agendas - this man is only what he
appears to be. He has no reason to be anything other than entirely
genuine. There is no reason to try to convince anybody that he is
something he is not. An entire life, more than ninety years I would
say, are held within this one man and yet, to look at him, he is so
clear, so focused, so simple to read. He can feel death, snatching at
his shadow, tickling his spine. He has no time to be anybody other than
himself.