Nothing but Time.

By will livingstone

Nothing much ever seemed to happen at that grotty roadside eatery.

The stools were too old to attract fresh-eyed youth who weren’t too hungry to be interesting and the owner was a burnt out man, a man who’d long ago used all his chances in life to explore paths that had led him to nowhere in particular.

Nothing but time.

That was all there was there now, time to pass. Excitement had gone from the years now, except for the occasional car crash the man would observe from his little plastic stool behind the fading counter, covered with grease spit and food stains.

What mattered now was passing the time, waiting for…something. The man had seen friends come and go, live and die. He was still alive, in a manner of speaking.

He existed there amongst the fumes of the street, the passing shadows who saw yet more shadows passing around them. But he didn’t speak, and he didn’t see happiness anymore, because his eyes were blind to it, and he could no longer attract it like he had in college.

Girls would pass him then and leave something of themselves behind, before he became a part of the city, a piece of it, running and working along with it smoothly. Before, he had been dysfunctional, and those had been the times he had felt alive, aware, needed.

Now people needed his service, but in time, that too would pass, because in time, he too would pass from the world, and the grotty diner would become too old to be used anymore and a fresh, clean one would replace it, with a fresh new part of the city standing behind its counter, waiting in his or her time for something, perhaps a chance, perhaps nothing in particular.

That was everyone’s gift, time.

But all everyone seemed to do was give it away for nothing, a piece of life that was already dead, because it had already been accounted for, measured out, and stamped with judicial authority like a sentence.

The man sat up, confused by something, a dim hint of a memory lurking behind his eyes. In all his days, memories seemed to come and go before him, some living, some long dead. But all he had to give now was time.