The old man

He was the oldest man in the world, and he sat in my cupboard. In his milky eyes shone the glimmering oriflammes of a million years of life.

He smiled at me yesterday, as I reached over him to get a shirt.

“Is it time?” he asked, his crows’ feet taking flight as he smiled a grizzled beam.

“Not yet,” I said and opted for a black T-Shirt.

He has been sitting there for a while, occasionally he will leave to go and sit on the park bench and watch her play with her grandchildren, but otherwise he prefers to sit in the dark and shine a light on the past.

He was young once, and travelled the world in search of her. He found her and they danced, oh how they danced ‘neath the bemused stares of cosmic witnesses on the beaches, and under the grim urban gaze as they tripped the light fantastic down on mainstreet.

Yesterday I saw him crying. Maybe crying isn’t the right word, it was only one lazy tear — none too concerned if his brethren followed him down the age-scarred skin of the old man’s face. It trickled and then stopped half-way down. It was almost as if, knowing its inevitable demise on the cupboard’s wooden floor, stopped to take stock of its short life. I hope it made its peace before it splattered into a briny oblivion.

The old man says less and less as the years pass. She has died, and the park bench holds no visions for him anymore.

He will sometimes mutter something, but I fail to catch the words as they escape his cracked lips and fly away into the space between our worlds.

Yesterday I opened the cupboard to get a pair of jeans, and he asked me: “Is it time?”

“Yes,” I replied. “It is.”

The old man got up and left. As he walked out the door he turned to me and said: “It’s all in the memories. The answers to all the secrets are already known. You just have to find them.”

I am dying now. It has been 30 years since the old man left. Yesterday I sifted through my memories and found a face I had buried. The face still smiles and I smile back, but not very often.

I now spend most of the time in the cupboard. Yesterday when my son came to get a pair of short I asked him if it was time.

“Not yet,” was all he said.