Around 8 PM on Thanksgiving, a very gorgeous night––full moon and all––I went for a purposeful two-hour walk in a very good mood. It was a curious feeling, spying into warm lit homes and hearing conversations slipping through curtained windows, and bursting out, every now and then, choruses of rich laughter. I spotted a couple hidden in the shadows, in front of a garage, trying to swallow each other alive and that took my mind off him. He was doubled over, wobbling softly on when I first saw him. I felt fear and could not explain why. It felt strange that he could walk in that manner. How could he see where he was going? Surely it hurt him to walk like so. What brings one to that state? Would not a walking stick be of some help? He was an old man in jackets that seemed too warm for the night. He was going the opposite way and I had to walk pass him. I felt such fear when he drew nearer. That instance when I walked by him I was only conscious of him and my over-hyped imagination. It took everything in me to not look back as I walked on. My thoughts were of him until I was nudged out of them by the couple in front of the garage.
On my way back home, I walked the same path and found him again standing next to a light pole, holding on to it, panting. It had been almost an hour since I had walked by him and he had not advanced much from where I last saw him. What if he is homeless? What if he did not have anywhere to go? I felt alarmed. I did not offer help. I did not think I could help him. Besides I was too chicken to get any close to him. In fact I wanted to be away from him. His form frightened me. For it seemed so strange, and abnormal on the lonely softly lit sidewalk. Never you mind that my dear grandmother is in a similar form these days. But she uses her walking stick! Nor that I have come across so many old people in that manner. I suppose it was not him that I feared. It was what he represented on that beautiful night. Old and alone on a night when the theme called for being with others. Bent over without even a cane to support him. And not knowing if he had a home to go to, it was like walking into a nightmare. I, too, was alone. It was just the two of us on that path. Is that me in some years to come? Will I still be feeling happy in my aloneness then? Glad to go on very long walks on family-themed holidays, spying in on happy traditions without envy? Is he happy too? Does his seemingly sad form signify that same state of mind? Does it mean anything that he can walk–– even in that way? Did he, too, choose to be on that path?
Two weeks later I was at my little part-time job when he came over to me. He wanted help to find an elastic belt. I showed him where the belts were. But I did not go to help him find one. I was so surprised to see him again and could not think. After some time I saw him leaving and went to ask if he found what he was looking for. No, he tells me, then thanks me and totters off. Some days later I found some of the belts he had been looking for. I stood there looking at them and thinking of him and me on that full moon night, on that softly lit path, walking away from each other between rows of houses full of intimate groups of people in their own interpretations of thanksgiving. What was he thinking? How was he feeling?
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J. A. O
