The Old Man On The Train, R. Dawn [electronic book reader .txt] 📗

The girl took a deep breath and turned the page. Thumbing through the pages she realized she could probably finish the book by the end of the week. Smiling, she picked up where she'd left off. Commuting was the worst, but if it meant she could read a book every week, well, she could live with it. 

Even though the book was long and boring, she was going to finish it. Once she started a book, she never gave up on it, no matter how much she hated it. Plus, this one had more mistakes than normal and it really gave her a sense of self satisfaction to point out the errors of a world famous writer.

A few stations later, the train started to get crowded. The girl glanced up from her reading as an old man sat down across from her. Always the observer, she took a closer look at him. He was carrying an old, soft leather briefcase, so worn down it reminded her of her brother's baseball glove. He had played in the park after school every single day, coming home with chalk and grass stains all over his knees. Their mother finally started buying all his jeans at the secondhand shop downtown, unable to watch her hard earned money being wasted on a game that she didn't even really like.  

The girl smiled thinking of her little brother, he always ran the hardest and laughed the loudest, despite his asthma and chronic cough. The old man moved the briefcase onto his lap, disturbing her memories. She continued to study him, as she always did when she found someone interesting. He took a newspaper out of the case and held it in one hand, reading. She saw the creases around his eyes and thought he looked tired. Or maybe he wasn't tired, maybe he was sad. It was usually hard to tell the difference.

Often, when looking at elderly men, the girl thought of her father, and what he was going to be like in old age. She worried about him because he lived alone and didn't have many friends. He always seemed upbeat when they spoke once a week, but even long distance, the girl could tell that her father was lonely. She knew that he still loved her mother, despite the fact that she was remarried and they had been divorced for almost 15 years. He was overly sentimental and it made her depressed to think about it. She wondered if he'd be alone forever. She wondered if some day he'd be reading the newspaper on the train, with creases around his eyes and scuffs on his shoes.   

The girl watched as the old man turned to smile at a cooing baby in a nearby stroller. The mother smiled back, wearily, as if by force of habit. Then she moved in front of the baby so the old man could no longer see it. As he turned back to his paper, his smile seemed to fade a little and, to the girl, his eyes seemed to deepen, shadowed by a cloud passing through his mind. Her own father was always talking to cashiers, waitresses and neighbours, a firm believer in the "treat others as you wish to be treated" way of life, unaware that most people found his rambling chatter overbearing and his friendliness to be strange. Why was this man asking about their family?  Why was he laughing and smiling when he didn't even know them? The girl felt sad, thinking about what a good man her father was, and how he spent most of his time alone.

As the old man slowly transformed into her father, she glanced down and noticed that his other hand, the one holding onto the briefcase, had started to bleed. It had been a particularly cold winter and his hands were chapped and raw. As the skin on his finger cracked wider, blood started to pool. As the old blood dried, new blood flowed on top of it, creating a large red bump on his index finger.  

The old man was absorbed in his reading and didn't notice that his dry skin had finally broken. The girl looked away. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to offer him some tissue from her bag. She wanted to show him kindness, as she hoped someday a stranger would show to her own father if he was in need. But she was in a foreign country and she didn't speak enough of the language to talk with him. She felt awkward and uncomfortable communicating through hand gestures and facial expressions. She was tired of being misunderstood.  She looked away, feeling ashamed at herself for being too afraid of embarrassment to help the man.

As the train approached the next stop, the old man stood up. The girl, incapacitated by the language barrier, watched as he brushed his other hand against the blood, smearing it across his other fingers, never realizing anything was amiss. He left the train, leaving her with a sense of absolute humiliation and remorse. Her cheeks grew hot and her eyes started to water. Now he was going to be walking around with blood all over his hands. She imagined strangers quickly glancing away from him, making him feel small and alone. She turned her face towards the window, hiding her emotions from the other passengers. They would think it odd to see a strange girl crying in public.   

Why didn't she just hand him a tissue and point to his finger, smiling to make sure he understood she only meant to help him.  One human being to another. She felt worthless and ashamed. If her father had seen how she had just behaved, his eyes would become distant, as if he didn't recognize her. And all she ever wanted was to make him proud.  

Picking up her book, she started reading again. Realizing she was only halfway through the book she sighed, wondering if she'd ever get to where she was going.

Coming soon...

Text: Rebecca Dawn Bowslaugh
Images: Google Images... not mine
Publication Date: 03-30-2013

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