The other day at the airport I met the most insteresting man. He was tall, hunched over, around 75-80 if I could guess. He had a breathing tube in his nose, scruffy white hair and a well-groomed beard. But what really struck me about him was his eyes.
He had a thousand-yard stare, the smell of cigars on his breath. I saw him being wheeled over by the airport staff, fighting as he hacked and wheezed. Figuring this was just another patron angry at the often irritating airport security, I planned to ignore him and continue the round of Starcraft I was engaged in (In my defense, Hard difficulty takes a lot of focus). I had seen this kind of thing many times before, I thought, and I would see it again.
But then he started to whisper.
I'm not sure if he knows I could hear him singing, but there he was, muttering things about blood, guns and whiskey to an uncaring audience. I figured he was only bored, and continued with my game. But then he stared at me.
His eyes, those soul-piercing eyes, combined with his muttering- they told me everything I needed to know. The man possibly had dementia, or PTSD. The poor guy.
He looked at me and started up a conversation. Not wanting to be rude, I spoke with him as he took breaths from his nebulizer. As he rambled on about guns, blood and indians, I noticed the intensity he was trying to put into his quiet speech. Placing down my laptop I began to listen with great passion, holding on to every word.
He spoke of drink and war, of life and death, and what I could understand through his garbled speech I heard with great interest. He told me about his problems, and how he began to feel useless as a product of a different time. He thought aloud about death and pennance, of the point of fighting, and eventually of his own sin and loneliness. He looked up to the celing and talked about Sioux and Rose Bushes, then talked about the meaning of freedom while taking puffs from his nebulizer. His mind was so clearly gone- but something else had arrived in it's place, for both of us. An invisible link.
We were kindred spirits, the two of us. A mental patient and a teenager. Both of us, through trauma or art, notice the downsides of modern humanity and weep at the misfortune they bring to the world while it looks on uncaringly. He has seen them and I fear seeing them. Eventually, we begin to accept the sins of humanity. The only difference between this man and I is our age and experience. The man knows his time is coming, and accepts it, while I fear for what will happen tomorrow whenever I go to bed- both of us concerned with what will happen once we shut our eyes. In fact, he reminds me of someone. Myself, in fact.
I don't know where the man is now. Maybe he finally gave in and passed in his sleep. Maybe he's in a hospital where society feels that he belongs. Or maybe he's still in that seat at the Denver Airport, puffing from his tube with that thousand-year stare in his eyes. But let it be known, wherever he is, a part of me is with him- and a part of him is me as well.
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