Just another crack

A man is sitting in the corner of the local bus station, leaning against a concrete wall. It is just after sunset, and while his toes still carry the warm memory of a pleasant autumn day, he slowly feels the reassuring cold creeping in through his leather jacket. Not far from where he is sitting, a pigeon is limping around an abandoned piece of bread, tearing apart its best parts.

The station is covered in fog, with little lights shimmering through, like distant stars on a sky, offering orientation to the handful of people still around. They are merely more than blurred shadows in what feels like another world, another reality.

Not ours, the man thinks, looking at the pigeon.

He recognizes some of the shadows, they have become familiar over the years. Others are new, maybe waiting for a bus, unaware that the last one passed over an hour ago.

That’s it, the man thinks, looking at them. Sometimes we start waiting and we just never stop.

The man himself has been waiting for something, or maybe someone, to happen for years, though he isn’t sure about time anymore. First, he stopped wearing his watch and counting the hours; then he lost track of the days passing by and now he is in a state of existence beyond our understanding, beyond time. He vaguely remembers that he was once different - a promising young man, full of ideas and plans and possibilities. In these moments of reminiscence, he sees people and images passing by, as if it were not his life but someone else’s. Sometimes he smiles at them, wondering what would have become of this young energetic man. And sometimes a tear runs down his face as he realizes that what he has become is now him.

From time to time, people talk to him, but he rarely gives an answer and even then, he barely enjoys the talks. Sometimes people wonder what happened to him. Not that they would actually ask, but he can see the question marks carved into their faces. His mom did years ago, his sister did, some friends and social workers still do. They wonder what made this promising young man disappear, or worse, turn him into what is now him. But they all miss the point. It is not about what happened, it is about what didn’t happen, not about bad luck, a dying friend or a stroke of fate, but about waiting for something that just never happened.

When he thinks about it, his whole life has been barely more than waiting and still now, sitting on the ground of the bus station, he is waiting for something that might never happen, waiting for someone to pass by, stopping, saying I am here. This person would stand in front of him, their eyes would meet and then the person would say I am here, I have been waiting for you too. He would smile then. Sometimes, when it is dark, he is practicing his smile, just for this moment.

Is it possible to forget how to smile?

He would stand up and they would leave this place together, which, as soon as they stood up, would cease to exist. As if it existed only for him. They would then walk along the street through the slowly dissolving fog and see cafes and stores popping up along the way, with colorful people milling around them. They would cross a park and in its center, there would be a fountain shaped like a fish and the man would recognize that it is a smiling fish, a happy fish, shooting fountains of water into the blue sky, fountains of happiness. Passing by, he would feel the wind blowing drops of water on his face. And he would be smiling too, though it would feel very different from his night-time practices. For sure he would look like an idiot!

On the corner of the park a café would pop up, with old metal chairs surrounding colorful tables. They would sit down and order coffee from an extremely cheerful waitress.

‘I hoped that you would be waiting for me’, this person would say.

‘I waited for a long time.’

‘You never thought of pushing forward, of leaving this place?’

‘Where should I have gone?’

‘Anywhere.’

‘Wouldn’t anything else have been escaping?’

‘Maybe it would have been choosing another way?’

‘But what if that way wasn’t mine, wouldn't I miss the one thing that is truly mine, that I have been secretly awaiting all the time?’

‘So?’

The waiter would put two steaming cups of coffee on the table, accompanied by pieces of freshly baked pastry. He would take a sip, feel the heat running down inside his body, and lean back, observing all the colorful people around.

‘Yes, sometimes I did. I wondered how it would be to choose one of their paths. I observed them adapting patterns, lives, that weren’t theirs. Sometimes I almost thought it could work. I saw people being happy living someone else’s life, saw the difference fading away over time until it was barely recognizable.’

‘But?’

‘Then I took a closer look.

Imagine a house. You have this image in your mind, of a house in this particular triangular shape, on the top of a hill, something that looks like a small tower at one of the edges. A nice little garden. It is your house and no one else knows how to build it, no one else has the abilities but you.

But you lack some of the materials and so you wait. You walk around and see other houses. They all look somehow similar, people go in and out, seemingly happy. And you start to think, hey, it can’t be that difficult, it’s just a house! Some stones, wood - you should be able to do it! Then you would finally have your own place, no need to wait any longer. Sure, it wouldn't look like you imagined it, but why wait for something that might never happen, while everyone else is already moving into their houses? Isn’t that unfair, somehow?

So you talk to the people and it seems fairly easy to build such a house. You look for a free spot and start. It feels good to finally do something! Soon you are done and there is nothing, you think, like this moment when you are finally moving into your own house. Your neighbors are asking you for a housewarming and you think that it might be a good idea, so you organize one. You meet new people and start to feel something that reminds you of happiness, that you, after some time, start to believe is happiness.’

‘But it isn’t?’

‘With the years you realize fine cracks in the facade of your house. It’s not a problem, not at all, it’s only little cracks! You fix them and continue like before.

But with time passing by, some more cracks appear and this time it’s not only the facade, but it’s your relationships and someday, it’s you.

The cracks are not the problem. You can repair your house, talk to your friends, it’s not really an issue. The problem is something different, lies deeper. The knowledge, that all of this was inevitable right from the beginning, that it will be, and that you can do nothing to stop these little and over the time bigger cracks from appearing. They are not popping out of nowhere, they are the consequence of you building a house that you weren’t supposed to build, living a life that was never yours. And it is not one little crack, it is this tremendous truth that is crashing down on you.

You built the wrong house.

You met the wrong people.

You lived the wrong life.

This life that you created over the years becomes somehow extraneous.’

‘It’s yours, but it is not you.’

‘It feels like you are losing yourself, replacing it by everything that you can grab, valued by what others expect.

When I'm sitting at the station, I see people smiling, making jokes. But looking in their eyes, I see these little cracks in their facades of happiness. These little regrets of having stopped to be who they really are, of maybe not even having tried.’

‘So you’ve been afraid?’

‘Yes, I was afraid of losing what I am, although it might be barely more than nothing.’

‘You look sad though.’

‘I am.’

‘We can be sad together now.’

~~~

A man is sitting on the ground of the local bus station, his eyes closed, lost in reverie, it seems. People passing by, they are in a hurry to catch the next bus, buy something seemingly important, meet someone. They barely recognize the man sitting there, leaning against the cold concrete wall, like he always does. But if they looked at him, they would see a little smile appearing on his face, and they would maybe stop. And the man on the ground would cease to be what they think he is, and small cracks would appear in their facades.

They would go on, trying to repress these thoughts, moving on as always. But they would go with having had a glance at something more, something that they maybe don’t understand yet, don’t want to understand, but finally will, one day.

At night, they would have dinner with their partner and their two children. They would talk about work, life, the soccer match last weekend and the holidays starting in two weeks’ time.

Just like always.

They almost forgot the man at the station.

They forgot him.

Just another crack.