A Weary Traveller

He sat on unmoving like a stone monolith,
He looked just as huge and gray.
Glancing frequently at the wall-clock above him,
Peering from beneath his frayed hat's brim,
Wishing time would would speed up for him.


He was an hulking old man - way past his prime. Swathed in a gray, pin-striped coat and trousers of some unfathomable shade of color that had clearly seen better days just like the figure they clothed, he waited in a corner, seated on a plain metal seat painted a drab black that was now mostly scratched off by years of impatient passengers beating a tempo against it while waiting for the infinite buses to take them to destinations all over the country.


The face - a palette of sun-burnt colors,
The skin - wrinkled and veined.
The eyes, hard-set and of unfathomable black,
Now dull, now piercing like a boxed-up Jack,
Like embers glowing new life within an old sack.


The old man sat almost patiently - like one already dead. There was no discernible movement in his big frame. There wasn't even the telltale signs of the rhythmic rising and falling of the thorax with the breathing. If one wasn't actually focusing on him, one's glance would jump from the potted plant on one side of his seat to the Navy recruitment poster on the other. Only the eyes seemed brimming with energy - black and burning with curiosity and impatience.


For hours they moved erratically, searching,
For signs that he alone knew.
Each ebon orb beneath a beetling gray brow,
Peering this side and that, so fast and yet slow,
Till they finally alighted on the timepiece, a-glow.


As if on cue, the loud-speaker crackled to life and a tinny voice announced boarding for all destinations South. The mountain in the corner rose suddenly like a God of the Old that had been slumbering for ages now awoken. He hoisted a duffel bag that no one had noticed over his broad shoulder. As he made his way towards the exit, his eyes caught mine watching him - and he smiled. Then, he was gone. It made me happy to think a man such as him - who looked so defeated - could still smile.

Maybe it was because he was headed South for the winter.