Waiting

From the rocker on his porch, the old man watched the silhouettes appear on the horizon, barely specks descending the low treeless hill a few miles west of his cabin. He made no effort to gauge the time by the evening sun and needed not make any calculations as to the time of his visitors’ arrival.

A cool breeze ran through his tattered red shirt. Wind chimes sounded. He had crafted them from wood, so many years ago- a gift for his wife. The sweet sound, different each time yet so familiar, had always soothed him, and in these his last years, they heralded memory’s ebbing tide. So simple, just wood and string, but what else was required? The ancient notes, random and to no meter, were an immortal tribute to the old oak tree, which had been ripped from the earth in a fierce storm. In fact, it had been that very tree which had finally convinced them to settle there after so long on the dusty trails. Majestic on the banks of the fast flowing creek which cut through the stead, it summoned feelings they were beginning to forget. Home. Over the next decades it had rewarded their faith with shade from the sun and- once the children were born- leant its strong branches to climbing feet, untamed imaginations and rope swings.

Sad eyes, which had seen their fair share of both horror and beauty, tracked the travellers as they steadily made ground towards his home. Men had been here before- to rob and to destroy- but he’d always been able to keep them at bay. He’d had the boys around then though, born and raised on this land, they’d been a match for any newcomer. That was then. Now he was alone and all that was left to defend were the ghosts of a past more real than the present. More certain than the future. Alive within and around him, they spoke with each creak of the house’s wooden frame. In the tall grass, not far from where he sat, he still thought he could see his youngest son’s blood. A dark crimson pool had had welled up just short of the porch steps. That was the end. It had been just him and his daughter after that, for a few years at least, until the winter of the Fever. He found himself alone on land that he had always expected to share. Yet he could not leave; everything that was Him was here. So he remained.

Alone. But never without companionship. Perhaps, when he’d been young he wouldn’t have understood- but, somehow, he was content to sit back and watch the reflections of his life ripple in the wind of time. His life had been a full one, tainted by sorrow, untouched by regret.

The moment approached, riders passing a plot of land marked by five wooden crosses. He had buried them all himself, each time with one less pair of hands to help. There was not a soul left to put him in the ground, when the day finally came. Was this it? Surely, he had survived worse odds, but each day that passed was one less left to live. He waited. There was no point to rushing, nothing to be gained through recklessness.

Around him, songbirds sang their merry hymns of tranquillity. Soon they would flee, to be replaced by buzzards and crows- one way or another.

He breathed deeply, slowly reaching to his right where his rifle rested. He felt the familiar weight as he lifted it to his shoulder. The blueprints of his house were carved deep into the calluses of his hands and his aim was steady. As he waited, he recalled that he had used the same gun to put down the horse that had carried him here. And he thought, “It’s funny what you think of when you’re old”.
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photo by Fazal Sheikh