THE MAN WHO WAITED A man sat down, and he waited. He had been away for a long time, but now he was home. Not that it especially felt like his home anymore. Other places he had called home, and had actually felt like home, but now they were gone. Or, rather, the places were still there and it was he who had gone. So now he sat in his real, original, proper, home town and he waited. And as he waited he thought. He thought of the other places and the people who had filled them. He thought of his children, and the friends who he had loved. And it wasn't that those people had gone, either, they were all still there. Well, most of them anyway. It was indeed he who had gone. Gone back home, where he now sat and waited. He waited as people came and went, and then more people came. But the people didn't sit and wait. They sat and they talked, and they joked, and they laughed, and they ate, and they drank, some people played games together, and yet more hugged and they kissed, and they loved. And as he waited he began slowly, gradually, to change. His face grew thin, and drawn, and crinkly. His beard grew thick and bushy and wiry, and the wires faded from ink-black, to ashen-grey, to snow-white. And as he waited, a child came to him and said: "Old man, what are you doing?" "I'm waiting..." replied the man. "That's interesting!", said the child, "What are you waiting for?", he asked. "I don't know." said the old man. He closed his eyes, and he never opened them again. - December 2021