…Finally, the time had come to get going and head towards new places. The sun had set for some time already. The electricity was back on, and in about half an hour, I needed to be at the station whence my bus was to depart. The station was on the other side of the city, and I had phoned someone to come and pick me up with a motorbike taxi.
Then, while I waited outside the door, that guy who was the inn’s guard approached me. The inn was a low-budget, unfenced one. Only that bloke was tasked with providing security to it, unarmed.
He was a calm and genial man, around sixty years of age. His physical robustness and rough facial features testified the vigor that must have once pervaded his youth. He would only turn up in the garden in the evenings. He would sit quietly in a corner, and only after the place was deserted entirely, he would cover himself with a bristly rug and crash on the couch.
We’d never talked much. He would only greet me cordially every time we happened upon each other; in a way that manifested love for life. Late in the evenings, I would also be sitting in some corner of the garden, captivated by the broad sky’s lure, playing melancholic tunes on the guitar and singing in a low and doleful voice. Now and again, I would apprehend his sparkling eyes staring at me through the darkness, whereupon he’d let out a perturbed grin and turn his gaze abruptly either to the ground or to the sky…
So, as I then stood waiting by the curb, he approached me.
“You’re leaving, eh?” he said.
“Yes, I’m waiting for a piki piki to take me to the bus station,” I responded.
“No, you don’t need a motorcycle! Let’s walk to the station together,” he proffered in an earnest tone, zealously trying to shoulder my backpack at the same time.
But I stopped him and explained that there is no need for that since we don’t have enough time, anyway. That conduct of his took me by surprise because he was a proud man, and I had never seen him engaging in beggarish errands. But what shocked me was the incident that followed…
The motorbike came. He helped me with fervor to load my luggage, and at the moment the driver throttled the bike up, he pronounced in a voice that exposed an inner sob: “I will miss you, young man.”
I managed to observe his face for two seconds before we drew away into the darkness. These two seconds, however, more than sufficed to discern a soul scream that found its way as a tear out of his bloodshot eyes.
That scream managed to invade my own soul, which felt as if being pricked, since the cry was reproduced in waves within me, and I could not understand it. It only broke off when we reached the bus, where I began dealing with how are we going to fit in there and such things. So I forgot for the moment what had just gone by.
We set off, and I stuck my face against the window to see and farewell the city’s dark streets one by one. We left behind us the last ones of them and took the way to the unknown. It was then I turned my gaze towards the sky’s infinity, and I saw in it again those bloodshot eyes, and I heard again that scream. But this time it was converted into speech, a passionate speech; and I understood it; and it said:
“Live! Live young man! The time is passing. Live now, today! Live every day, every moment! Live intensely! Live courageously! Live mercilessly! Live audaciously! Defy time! Defy death! Defy God! Defy existence! Defy life! Live, I’m telling you! Live forever! Grab that bitch, life, by the hair, and drag her through the mud! Flip the whole world over and turn the universe upside-down! LIVE! LIVE! LIVE!”
The story you've just read is a part of my "Real Stories of Real People" collection, wherein I narrate my encounters with various remarkable characters I've run into while traveling around the world. The entire collection is published on my blog and may be read here. But if you'd like to get them with you to the beach in your ebook reader or as a physical book, and very appreciatedly support my creative activity, go ahead and grab your copy from Amazon for the cost of a cup of coffee.
