Waiting

He sat in the small café, looking out of the rain covered window at the cold, grey, miserable morning. His mug of tea sat growing cold in front of him. A scattering of crumbs were all that was left of his toast. He could have easily had tea and toast at home, but this café was an escape from the loneliness that his house imprisoned him in. He watched an old lady trying to cross the street. She trod into a big puddle after being overwhelmed by the noise of the heavy traffic. He thought of her as an old lady, but she was probably not far off his own age. It was funny how he still thought of himself as a much younger man. Only his failing body was a constant reminder of the cruel reality behind his false self-image. Old age had crept up on him while he was too busy doing other stuff to notice, and had robbed him of his health and vitality. As he watched a young lady help the elderly lady to cross safely, a song came on the little radio that sat at the end of the café counter. It brought to an end, the monotonous torture of some political debate between the DJ and an arrogant local councillor, of whom he had never heard.

He recognised the intro to the song straight away. It had been their song, their special song. Instantly he was back in that hotel room, down on the coast. They had gone to celebrate his fortieth birthday. She was eleven years younger, and they had been together for nearly four years. They were listening to this song, as they danced in a slowly rotating circle, holding each other tightly, as if with a fear of letting go. Two tealight candles illuminated them, sending flickering shadows across the walls and ceiling, as though depicting some kind of grotesque, two-headed beast. They gazed into each other’s eyes as they danced, and when she came to face the candles, her big brown eyes lit up and sparkled, as if they each contained their own tiny flame. She was so beautiful, regardless of the type of light that illuminated her face. He knew that he loved her deeply, and that he always would. When the song had come to an end, she stood there, rubbing the curls of her long dark hair by her right ear, between her thumb and index finger. It was a habit she had, and it would always make him smile when she did it. In his mind, it looked as if she was trying to straighten her untameable curls. That weekend was the best of his life. They had laughed so much, and danced, and shut out the rest of the world from their own little heaven. That was the weekend he asked her to marry him. That was the weekend she said yes. That was the weekend his life finally fell into place, and he knew he had found his soulmate. That was the weekend before the accident. A car had swerved to miss a child that had run into the road. It had lost control, mounted the pavement, and had hit his fiancée of three days, pinning her against a brick wall. As he sat by her hospital bed, he held her hand, and begged her to wake from her coma; to find the strength to pull through. Alas, her injuries were just too severe, and she slipped away four days later, exactly one week after he had proposed. Although her passing had been peaceful, he felt she was ripped cruelly and violently out of his life, and forced prematurely into eternal rest.

He jolted back to reality, and felt that pain and sadness again, just as he did every time he relived that weekend, and the events that followed. Even though that trip was the happiest memory of his life, it was also the hardest one to recall. It was an unbearable reminder of what he had lost and had never again found. Even though it had been twenty-seven years ago this July, the pain still felt raw. He was cheated out of his perfect soulmate, his future wife, and maybe even the joy of parenthood. Tears pricked at his eyes as he thought about what could have been, and he suddenly felt very alone and isolated. This realisation never failed to hit him hard. He tried to block it out, but the pain was always there in the background, ready to strike out and hurt him at every opportunity.

He rose slowly to his feet, leaving his tea unfinished, embarrassed that the other customers might see the tears in his eyes, and left the dryness of the café to battle with the rain. He walked quickly down the street, eager to get out of the downpour, even if it was back into the desolation of his home. As he cut through the little park at the other end of the high street, his breathlessness became too much to drive his aching joints any further. The sudden pain in his chest, and growing giddiness, forced him to sit down on a nearby bench, not caring about getting his trousers wet. He closed his eyes tight, trying to push away the excruciating pain, and struggling to breathe. The gasps seemed never-ending as a tingling made his left arm ache. Everything went quiet and he felt he was about to black out, when suddenly, it passed. He sat with his eyes still closed as his breathing slowly returned to normal. When he opened them, the rain had stopped, and the sun was shining. It felt warm against his skin, but rendered him temporarily blind. As his squinting eyes adjusted to the brightness and came back into focus, he saw a beautiful woman standing in front of him. With her right hand, she was rubbing the curls of her dark hair, just behind her ear. With a smile she said softly, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

Shortly afterwards, a passer-by saw the old man motionless on the bench, the rain washing over him. His lifeless eyes were staring towards the sky, but did not blink as the falling drops of rain hit them. As she dialled 999 on her mobile phone, she wondered about the smile on the old man’s face. That smile was all that was left of him now, a smile that nobody had seen for twenty-seven years.