The Old Man And The Boy 7

The lamp cast a golden glow in the otherwise dark room.

Several brushes were strewn here and there, rumpled papers and pencil shavings scattered around the table in a colorful mess. The boy pushed the painting right below the lamp so that he could see the exact stroke and shade of the colors. He examined the painting.

Green, blue and gold stared back at him.

He thought back to that day when he had sat by the lake with the old man and decided for the first time in his life that he wanted to be a painter. He could not believe that he had remembered the exact shade of the sky that day, or the way the dying light of the sun had caught the shifting ripples in the lake. But there it was in front of him, in paper and color. He saw himself sitting in a bench beside the old man, their figures captured in that moment forever. He could almost imagine the old man's all seeing stare as he looked forward at the water, and the satisfaction on his own face as he contemplated thoughts of a future he had never wanted before.

It was good and he knew it. But he wanted the old man to see it before he showed it to anyone else. It seemed important that the moment remained between them, it's significance understood only by the two of them. For the first time in his life, someone else's opinion mattered more than his and he wanted, needed their approval in order to feel the satisfaction he should have been feeling all along.

He looked at his hands, smudged with colors. These were hands that had been used for good for the first time, hands that were capable of creating beauty and capturing moments, if he just allowed himself to believe. He felt exhilarated; he believed he could do this, he could paint, he could become someone.

Staring at the darkness outside his window, he realized he had never waited for daylight to arrive with such anticipation before. So, when the sun finally broke out across the sky and welcomed the day in all it's glory, the boy waited patiently as the hours of the morning slowly crawled by. When finally afternoon came around, the boy took his painting and and whistled all the way to the lake. He did not worry or entertain the thought that the old man might not actually like it. Because he knew the old man would congratulate him heartily even if he drew him a dead crow. He crossed through the few trees of everyday and stepped into their clearing.

And it was empty.

For a second, he stood there shocked into stillness by the bareness of that unfamiliar sight. For as long as he had been coming there, the old man had always been there, sitting in that bench, staring out at the water with his undeterred gaze. He could not remember sitting alone in their bench, not even one single afternoon. And now the trees felt like statues in his absence and the silence uncanny, as the day proceeded and the seat beside him grew colder by the hour. The leaves rarely moved, and the breeze didn't sing it's usual song. And for the life of him, he could not understand where all the birds had gone, or why they weren't driving him to madness that day with their incessant chirruping.

He came to the conclusion that the old man must have slept in or was probably having a sick day. He was, after all, an old man. He hadn't realized before how easy it was to forget that little fact when it was just the two of them by the lake, but now he felt it growing bigger and bigger, stretching until he began to worry, which he realized, was a new experience for him as well. But he didn't know where he lived so he couldn't even stop by to check if everything was alright. Now that he thought about it, he hardly had any idea about his personal life. Why had he never asked him about this? Why had these little details never seemed significant before?

He felt confused, and slightly uncomfortable with the silence that seemed to press down on him with every passing moment. He distinctly acknowledged that in the old man's presence, the silence had never seemed as big, as oppressing as it did to him in that moment. For so long they had existed in this same routine, and it had become a habit for him, just like going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning. Who was he to mess it all up now? To pull him out of this peaceful familiarity and throw him into a world so strange and unfamiliar, where afternoons by the lake did not include him? He blamed it all on the old man, but couldn't find that trace of anger in himself that would be so much easier to hold on to. Instead, he sat staring at the water like the old man used to and he wondered what he saw that seemed to hold his gaze every time.

He watched the sun set that day and had no one to describe it to. For a moment, it had seemed impossible that something as normal as that could still take place after he had spent the entire afternoon at the edge of his seat, waiting for something, anything to happen. But as the sky paled and the first shade of gold fused with the red and the orange and the purple, he looked to his side and felt his absence again.

He got up with his painting then, and walked home in the twilight. He did not whistle again.

Dinner that night was a strange event.

"Are you alright?"

The boy looked up to see his father staring at him strangely, a concerned frown etched upon his face. "You seem upset over something," he noted.

The boy scowled over the fact that his dark mood was this apparent to the people around him and mentally accused the old man for it. "It's nothing," he said dismissively.

"So...." his father said, and the boy raised an eyebrow at his tone, "What did you do this summer?"

The boy thought about it, he thought about the old man and how he was no longer the same person he had been when he had slammed the door on his mother's scolding that afternoon when it had all begun.

"This summer, I made a friend." Because, that was what the old man was to him - a friend. It felt good to finally acknowledge the old man's presence in his life to someone, even if it was in the most abstract way possible.

When he did not say anything else, his father smiled at him and something about the kindness in his smile reminded him of the old man.

"That's good," his father said, "So you enjoyed your summer then?"

The boy nodded. He had no doubt in his mind. "Yes, it was different."

It was quiet for a while and no one said anything. The boy had not realized when he had grown so acquainted with the new found voice in his head, but unlike this afternoon, he was quite comfortable with his thoughts now. Maybe it was because the old man's empty seat was no longer interfering with his subconsciousness outside the confines of the lake.

"Dad?" he asked suddenly, "Do you think that sometimes it is too late to resolve some misunderstandings?"

If his father was surprised by his question, then he did not show it. Besides the boy wasn't sure he would've been able to explain what made him ask that question in that moment either.

"It's never too late for that, son," his father said. 'Son' - there was that word again that had slipped so easily from the old man's lips in the numerous afternoons they had spent together. They felt almost strange coming from his father.

"When do you resolve those fights then?" the boy asked, "How?"

His father looked at him in that queer way again, "When the two people decide to let go of their differences and agree to start over."

The boy wasn't sure if the old man had enough time to start over. But letting go? Now that was something he could do. The boy knew that.

He thought about it that night as he went to sleep. The painting that he had abandoned for the rest of the day, resting patiently on his desk, with renewed hopes of the morning light.