The Book

The old man by the bench

"Excuse me do you have a minute" the old man sitting beside me on the park bench asked.

He'd been sitting there throwing seeds at birds for a while now. Even the birds were getting tired. I was sick of it. The time it took him to put his wrinkled sun bleached hand into the seed bag was even slower than how long it took him to throw it at the birds. I could have been throwing it seed by seed and the birds would still get more from me in an hour than they would from him in 2 days. I was getting impatient and so were the birds. They were constantly squawking in anger, practically begging to be fed. I had honestly had it up to here. He was a slow, incompetent old man. And not the type of old man that was wise with stories and experiences to share. He was the type that had probably spent his childhood working in the farm without enough money for school and clothing and grew into adulthood without a job. He most likely spent his mid thirties selling cigars at a dead beat job constantly convincing himself he was happy. This type of old man had nothing interesting to say.

"Um actually..." I started trying to divert from the question at hand.

"Oh I promise it will only take a second" he insisted. That probably meant an eternity at his pace.

I nodded in compliance.

"Beautiful isn't it"

"Excuse me"

"Oh sorry, I mean the scenery here" he paused to get another hand full of seeds for the birds."it is quite glorious in the spring" he smiled as he threw the seeds at them. God he even sounded old. He talked slower than he moved. I didn't see this conversation ending in the next few hours at this rate.

"Ya it is pretty amazing" I tried to concur with him. Maybe if I agreed with everything he said he'd go straight to the point.

"Its marvelous, this park is so beautiful in the spring"

"Ya its great but its not spring yet" I couldn't resist countering him.

"Oh but it is, you see those flowers over there" he pointed slowly to the orchids at the far end of the park.

I nodded.

"They're petals are swollen inside, they've become inflamed which means they're about to bloom so its spring" he looked at me and smiled.

"Maybe but spring isn't for another three weeks" I smiled back. Not much, just a little lift from the corner of my mouth. But enough to make it looked like I cared.

"That's the way you see it" he took another go at the seed bag. "There's more than one way to look at something" he threw the seeds."It's spring I can feel it".

The birds looked exhausted. They'd starve to death before the man would finish talking. I almost felt sorry for them. This way they'd suffer, they could see their food but no way to eat. The poor things. I felt compelled to pull the bag out of his cold hands and give it to them myself.

"Perhaps, but there are rules for these sort of things, things dont just happen because we feel them.

"Oh but I believe and if you believe anything is possible dont you think"

"Sure" I responded without enthusiasm.

His smile weakened. He was finally noticing I didn't care much for what he was saying. He looked down at his watch. The last time I had seen a model like that was with my grandfather and he hadn't worn it since world war 2, but of course he had a watch like this.

"Would you look at the time, its almost noon" he picked up the bag of seeds and emptied them on the grass. The birds chirped in joy. "I really must
get going" he stood up with his walking cane and waved goodbye.

"Wait" I beckoned. "Is that what you were gonna tell me" I asked.

"You'll see" he smiled and walked away.

He was right. It was getting late, the Sky's were getting grey and the sun would soon be out of the sky. I reached out for my hand bag when I noticed something peculiar. A book of some kind at the near end of the bench where the old man was sitting.

"Wait" I called out to him. He was almost out of sight but I could still make it to him if I ran."you forgot your book" I kept on screaming as I raced toward the man with the book in the air.

The old man had gotten far. With his pace it made me wonder if he had been running. He had left the park and gotten close to a bus stop. By the time I had reached the park exit he had already boarded a cab. I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. The cab was long gone. I walked back to the bench to get my handbag a little bit disappointed. I expected to have caught up with him. I looked down at the book in my hand. It was a hard cover. Probably a journal or a diary of some sort. The pages were completely blank. No writing whatsoever. What kind of weirdo carries around a blank book. There was no name on it or any kind of initials. Maybe it didn't even belong to the old man after all.

No point leaving it here. I thought. I opened my bag and put the book inside as I walked back to the bus stop. I called a taxi and headed on home.