Someone said that the best conversations start with : ‘Do you have a lighter? to someone that we doesn’t know.
As I walked past the park, I noticed a man sitting thoughtfully looking on the people passing by.
‘Excuse me, do you have a lighter?’ I asked him.
Honestly, I didn’t want to smoke at that time. I just wanted to hear a story from someone that might be interesting.
‘Yes, here you go’, he replied with a faint smile.
‘Are you waiting for someone? Your wife or child?’ I inquired.
‘No, I just want to sit here for a while. I’m tired from work’, he responded.
‘I’m not waiting for anyone. My wife and children used to bring me here in the afternoons. The feeling of happiness always comes back every time I come here’, he continued.
‘Sadly, they passed away five years ago in an accident while I was at work.’
‘I still come here doing my old habit, even though they are no longer with me.’
‘I can’t replace the longing I feel for them with anything else’.
‘For some reason, my body always wants to come back here. Maybe they are whispering to me from up there, I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps someday, I will wait for death to come for me in this same place’.
‘How happy I will be to leave this world where my child used to run around with his toys, and my wife used to watch him from a distance while feeding me food. And in this same place, a young man came to me and listened to the stories of someone who had no one to share with anymore’.
‘And who you waiting for, son?’ he asked me
I was speechless, realizing that I hadn’t even smoked my cigarette.
