Harbor of Stillness

The young man was sitting on a cold bench on the harbor, his legs crossed, and his mind wandering a hundred miles away into the grey mist of the Atlantic. His bright green eyes, clear as silver, were staring into what seemed to be an infinite haze of grey and dark blue. The skies were concrete grey with blemishes of darker shades, and the wind was a light chill ever going its way through the harbor’s area. A huge flock of seagulls cursed their surroundings down at the docks, their cries all together morphing into a distorted white noise. Tiny, almost forced drops of late October rain landed with no sound. They landedlightly on the concrete, the bench, the ocean, the young man’s hair and nose. Quite chilled, the young man pulled up the collar of his pea coat, cupped his hands and breathed into them, still staring into the infinite greyness.

The rain subsided as slothfully as it started. The young man lit up a cigarette, and puffed out a thick rainy heap of white smoke. The smell of tobacco brought a simmering calmness to the deep inside of his mind. He closed his eyes and the early childhood memories reigned. The cafeterias filled with smells of fried butter and cigarette smoke, him and his father at one of the tables. He remembered the pool-halls. The smoke dancing underneath those white lights in the middle of the all-around dimness of the room. The smell of draft beer and club sandwiches, along with the clicking sounds of cues, and the blunt and dull sounds of balls hitting the back of the pockets. The father picking out the smallest cue he can find for his son, then for the first time showing him the importance of a bridge hand and the lightness of the grip. The son’s eyes dead focused, trying to aim clumsily, he miscues every other shot, as the father watches him with warmness inside his heart.

The crying howl of a submarine horn walked swiftly around the docks, and the harbor. The young man opened his eyes, not knowing where he has gone, and where the father has gone. The dirty-white flock of seagulls moved in dissonant harmony to a neighboring dock. Uncrossing his legs, and then crossing them again, the young man sat still, listening closely to the crisp sound of the waves crashing into a wall of concrete.

The old man came along and sat on the other side of the bench, straightening his old brown raincoat. The young man looked at the old man swiftly, within less than a second having noticed the well-groomed grey hair and beard of the old man, his dark-brown leather gloves laying peacefully on the hips of his darker-brown dress pants. The old man turned to the young man, asking:

“May I have one of your cigarettes, good sir?” he said in a sweet voice of velvet.

“Oh, absolutely,” the young man said with a polite smile, reaching into the inner pocket of his pea coat.

“Thank you, good sir…” the old man said, lighting up, “the weather is quite nice today, isn’t it?”

“It’s tremendous,” the young man replied.

“Tremendous…” the old man wistfully stretched out, “that’s a word I haven’t heard in a while. It’s good, very fitting,” he puffed.

“I suppose it is…”

The young man flicked the ash to his left, watching it land on the ground and disappear in the greyness. Then he looked at the old man again. He was an old man in his late sixties. His eyes, once bright blue were now dim with the once inevitable regret of the time that’s passed. Looking at him, the young man felt as if he knew about him more than the old man seemed to realize. The young man felt as though he knew one fact about the old man, the truest of all, which was simply: “There was not much left to do for the old man.”

“There isn’t…” the old man replied calmly.

“Pardon?” the young man said, thinking if he could’ve been thinking out loud. No way, he thought, he couldn’t have said that out loud.

“There isn’t much for me to do in life anymore…” the old man said, puffing on his cigarette calm and steady, “I have lived and, uh…” he paused with no intent to carry on. He just puffed on his cigarette, his dim eyes staring into the Atlantic greyness.

The young man sat still, ruminating on the next move. Should he have asked more about what the old man said? Should he have kept quiet, and waited for the old man to catch the right moment and carry on? But the old man was quiet, unmoved. He seemed like a statue of an old man sitting on a bench, with a burning cigarette in between his wrinkled fingers.

“I have lived long…” the old man spoke, “I have felt everything there was to feel in this life. Now things just get on repeat. To be honest with you, good sir…” he sighed, “I’m awaiting my death…I have been for the past three years…”

“I’m really sorry about it, sir…” the young man said, unsatisfied with a cliché of a reply.

“Don’t be, good sir…” the old man said with a warm smile, “Don’t be sorry, because I’m not sorry. It might just be that you don’t quite understand it right now, as you’re young, and I’m old…” he puffed, “but the time will come where it will make the most sense to you too. A finding of mine that awaits every single individual at some point in their life…”

“A finding, sir?”

“The one thing we all feel the weight of at all times. The one thing we all know the feeling of, but only few realize…”

The old man sat up straight, his arms crossed, his eyes now facing the young man.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked the young man.

“I’ve never been told that I couldn’t,” the young man said, smiling.

“I see…” the old man squinted, grinning, “because it’s very important that this secret will never be known by too many people. It can never reach the crowds. The preachers who know should keep silent. The world leaders who know should stray away from it at all costs. The fathers and the mothers who know should never talk about it with their children. The young people at parties who know must keep silent about it…” the old man paused to look even deeper into the young man’s eyes, “and if you are to find out about this secret, you must not share it with anyone…until the time comes…”

“When will the time come?” the young man asked.

“You’ll know…” he replied, “you will know just like I know now.”

The young man looked away from the old man’s dim eyes, and took a deep breath in.

“What is this secret, after all?” he gave into the temptaion of the old man's words, “What is it?”

The old man sighed and glanced into the still Atlantic greyness. He asked the young man for another cigarette. The young man took out his pack, eager with the most tempting curiosity to find out about the secret. The old man smoked up, took a deep drag, and started speaking.

…

The old man spoke uninterrupted, for less than ten minutes. As he finished speaking, he stood up, straightened his raincoat, with the seriousness of his face that indicated the absolute finitude of this encounter. The young man sat still on the side of the bench, legs crossed, but his eyes chasing after the old man walking away, down the harbor, into the greyness.

Since then, the young man lived for another forty-three years. Hehas lived a life not much different from everybody else’s. A life not much different from the old man’s life, or anyone’s life. At one point, very much later he has found himself thinking “there wasn’t much left for him to do”.

At sixty-seven, on the last day of the last month of the last year of his life, he walked down the harbor, in search for a bench with a good view of the Atlantic greyness. There was one. A young man was sitting there, his legs crossed, and his mind wandering a hundred miles far in the grey mist.

He sat down on the other side of the bench, and asked the young man for a cigarette. The young man reached inside his pocket and took out a pack. The old man smoked up, and spoke to the young man.

“Young man…” he spoke, “Can you keep a secret?”