I do not know how I came to be here. I’m stuck in this cold white-tiled tunnel, polished and hard, watching the strange trains without wheels taking and bringing people every minute. I'm caught in this never-ending bustle of what they call Life. I yearn for the day to be free of this commotion, to no longer hold this tin cup in my hand and wear this sign around my neck saying, ‘A Penny For Your Time.’
A man, no more than forty, with a large suitcase clamored out of the subway train with a briefcase under his arm. He began striding off in a hurry but I called out to him, ”Good day, sir.”
The man froze in his tracks and pointed at himself to confirm I was addressing him. I gave a nod and he approached me in the fray as I seated myself on a stiff bench.
“What do you want?” he asked pertly, above the station’s racket. “I'm in an awful hurry so make it quick.” Then, reading the sign around my neck, he remarked, “Oh is that it? Why I could give you more than a penny for my time.” He reached into his pocket for loose change. “You needn't ask for so little.”
“Oh, but you don't understand, ” I explained, putting up a hand to refuse the money. “It is I who will give you a penny for your time. All you need to do is to sit here with me and use the time you are given.”
“Wait? If I sit there with you and use the time I'm given, you will give me a penny?” asked the young man, slightly confounded. He eyed my disheveled apparel and scraggly beard. I could tell he was repelled by my haggard appearance seeing how he was outfitted in an expensive vest, overcoat, and fashionable cap.
Despite my beggarly image, he cautiously seated himself on the bench next to me, saying to himself, “Well, I must not have to sit here long if my reward is only a penny.” Mortified by my stench, he wrinkled his nose.
On the outside of his suitcase, I spotted a luggage sticker that read, Italy.
“Are you from Italy?” I inquired.
“No, but I've traveled there on business. Growing up, my parents would take my brothers and me to the Tuscan countryside for our summer holidays. We…Oh never mind!” he crossed his arms over his chest. Then he studied me for a moment and asked, “Where are you from?”
I sighed, leaning back on the bench, staring up at the large windows above the tracks that let in the sun for a short while each afternoon. “I lived in a place the very opposite of this. My world doesn’t fill its time with rushing about as all these people do.”
“Then how did you come to be here?”
“I'm not sure. All I know is that once I make someone truly appreciate the time they are given, I will be free to return to my world.”
“Is that so? You make it sound as if you were from a completely different planet!” he replied with a look of disbelief, probably thinking I was just a crazy old man who had been on my own for too long.
“But unfortunately, no one has made it to the third test,” I said.
“And what’s that?”
“That will be for you to discover,” I said.
“But how long will I have to sit here?” the young man glimpsed his watch.
“Maybe if you stop looking at the time, you'll be able to notice more around you,” I gently put my hand over his wristwatch. I pointed a steady finger ahead to where the subways passed. He looked up in the direction I pointed and immediately the bleach white tunnel, the tracks, the blinding fluorescent lights, and all the hubbub of the surging crowds vanished.
***
The pungent smell of cigarettes was exchanged for the aroma of rich earth. The multitude of bobbing heads in front of us became the bobbing heads of wildflowers in a warm breeze. The cold strobe-like lights transformed into a glorious sunset, melting the concrete walls into rolling hills. All around were lush fields with sweet clean air. The only thing in sight was a small family enjoying an evening picnic.
The young man beside me jumped up from the bench, speechless. He didn't question how he came to be here, but only said, in a complacent whisper, staring at the family, “Just like when I was a kid.”
Leaving his luggage and briefcase behind, he walked, as if he were magnetized, to the familiar scene. I walked after him and when we reached the family, with their delicious feast spread out on their checkered blanket, he exclaimed, “Why that's me, there, as a little boy with my brothers, George and Freddie, and my parents!” He took off his cap and clutched it in his hands saying, “Good evening to you all!”
Not a single head turned our way. Their meal went on undisrupted. The young man's forehead knitted together as he watched the content faces that took no notice of him. He wrung his cap and turned to me with a tortured look. “Do they not see me?”
“No,” I replied. “Why should they? After all, you are a very different person now.”
The young man raked his fingers through his fair, windblown hair. “Then why have you brought me here if my family can't even see me? Can they see you?”
“They could see you if you allowed yourself to be seen. They can't see me even if I tried. I brought you here so you could enjoy this time regardless of who was present. If you enjoyed this time when you were young, why can't you do it again?” I seated myself on an open spot on the picnic blanket. I grabbed a sandwich and offered it to him. It surprised him to see that the food and drink were real.
So, he sat down next to his brothers and accepted the sandwich. I watched him observe himself as a young boy. A clumsy smile curled on his face as his younger self happily stuffed his mouth with his mother’s homemade cookies.
“Lawrence!” exclaimed his mother. “Not until you finish your dinner.”
“But Mum,” said young Lawrence. “If I eat my dinner now, I won't have any room for later.” The cookies muffled his voice, “So I thought I should eat dessert now before I get too full, and if I'm still hungry, then I'll finish my dinner.”
His mother laughed. “Either that logic of yours will get you into big trouble one day, or you'll be a very convincing salesman! Now eat your dinner.”
“Oh, don't worry Mum, I won't ever be like one of those men. I'd rather be here!” Young Lawrence stretched out on his back so that he reclined among the wildflowers. “This is much too important to me.”
As I looked into the older Lawrence’s face, I saw only dismay. He fiddled with the hem of his expensive overcoat in frustration and impatiently loosened his tie.
I placed a hand on his arm, “It's funny isn't it, when we grow up, how we let go of what is important, and before we know it we are living to work, rather than working to live.”
He nodded, misty-eyed, “As soon as a get home, I'm going to take my wife and kids on vacation.”
I smiled, satisfied, and observed his younger self jump up with his brothers, grab their kites and run off to fly them.
Lawrence and I stood up, captivated by the kites dancing against the evening sky, like an ocean of glimmering gold, with pure, untouchable mountains of clouds on the horizon.
“We should never forget how to live, no matter how busy our lives become,” I said.
Older Lawrence replied, “Yes, I understand now the value of spending time like this. One must learn to live and give yourself space to live, not just exist from one day to the next.”
Then, from out of nowhere, a red kite became trapped against Lawrence's legs from the wind; its tail whipping about. Lawrence bent down and picked it up. His fingers trembled as he ran them over the canvas as if they were beginning to remember once more what it was like to fly a kite. Lawrence, beaming at me, whispered, “I wonder if I still remember...”
The next second Lawrence was holding the kite high above his head. His overcoat flapped behind him like a cape as he ran. The kite caught the wind and ascended swiftly joining his brother's kites.
“Hello, mister, ” came a small voice.
Lawrence looked down at his elbow to find young Lawrence smiling up at him.
“You can see me?” exclaimed older Lawrence.
“Of course,” young Lawrence giggled, “but I didn't know that grown-ups knew how to fly kites.”
George and Freddie caught sight of the older Lawrence and waved a free hand.
The older Lawrence waved back saying, “I admit it has been a very long time since I've flown one. Too long.”
“Well, you’re good at it anyway. Did you fly kites when you were my age?”
“Yes, I did,” Lawrence smiled. “I think it's important for adults to find the kid in themselves so we can remember what it was like to live, to be carefree so that we don't drift too far from the person we use to be.”
I saw Lawrence had figured out why his family couldn't see him. He had to let go of his current self and become like his younger self to be seen, or else he would’ve remained an invisible stranger to his family and possibly to himself.
“Very good,” I said in a low voice putting a hand on his shoulder. “I think you are quite ready for the second test.”
The kites and sun dropped out of the sky as if they were made of lead, behind the hills, leaving Laurence and I in sudden twilight.
***
Jagged cobblestones were underfoot. Indistinct shapes of builds rose around us, but I couldn't tell whether it was mist or smoke that was closing in until a bright explosion of fire shook us off our feet.
Lawrence and I fumbled in the dark and took cover in the ruins of the nearest building. The sounds of the explosions and artillery fire slowly dragged itself away from this forsaken place till an hour later when the sun rose and there was finally silence.
The rising sun brought light with it, but also a clear picture of a war-torn town in the countryside. Lawrence and I wasted no time searching for survivors. We maneuvered our way through the debris of the hollow, smoking skeletons of homes, through the rubble of people's lives, memories, and possessions. Many of the inhabitants must have evacuated because there was not a soul to be found.
Lawrence claimed he heard a voice coming from one of the ruins. When we reached the ruin, I called out to the lone survivor. My call was met with a barely audible voice coming from beneath a large fallen wardrobe. With Lawrence's help, we pushed the wardrobe aside, revealing the dark entrance of a trapdoor to a cellar.
A dusty shaking hand grasped the opening, followed by the round pale face of an old man with a pair of circular glasses on his head.
“Thank God,” he gasped in an exasperated voice as we pulled him out and steadied him on his feet. “I thought no one would ever come!” His frayed coat was now so black from the soot, I wouldn't have guessed that it used to be gray.
“Is there anybody else down there?” I asked.
“No, just me,” said the elderly man, wiping off his glasses. “I do not think you will find anybody in this town. They all fled before the attack.”
The elderly man coughed and clutched his side. I saw the bright color of blood against his soiled white shirt.
“You're bleeding!” exclaimed Lawrence.
“Let us help you find a place for you to rest and tend to your injury,” I said.
“There is an abandoned cottage on the outskirts of the town,” the old man gasped in pain.
“Alright, then we’ll take you there. Come, Lawrence, help me.”
Lawrence and I supported our injured survivor on either side, following his directions to the cottage.
The cottage was in great disrepair on the outside, but it was still decent inside. We laid our survivor on a bed next to a crumbling hearth. Luckily the bedsheets had been left behind, and I tore off a section to bandage his shrapnel wound after having Lawrence fetch water from a nearby well to clean it.
“I'm sorry we have nothing to lessen the pain,” said Lawrence, handing him some water in a clay mug. “How come you were the only one left behind in the town? Why didn't you leave with the others?”Lawrence knelt at his bedside. I seated myself in a rickety wooden chair next to him.
A weak smile stretched across the old man's face. Behind his glasses, his eyes squinted like deep blue crescents with a far-off twinkle. “I left the first time and found myself crammed in a dark shelter with trembling neighbors, more crowded with fear than human beings, I think. To be with all those people who ran away like frightened animals, because fear has turned them into nothing more….Fear has driven us from our daily lives to sit and await our doom, instead of using these precious last days. So, the last three times our town was threatened with an attack, I did not leave.”
“But then what did you do?” asked Lawrence.
“Well, as you see, the third time was my last, and it looks like now I don't have a choice but to leave. Nevertheless, I continued to live my life as I always have. If I were to die without warning I want to die living my life to the fullest, not cowering in fear, waiting to be finished off, or waiting for the day I can start living my life again. To live life when time is at its hardest is living life to its fullest,” the old man turned his face to the rising sun that slanted in through the glassless cottage window. “Remember, young man, ” he continued in a more faint voice. “We have been given a spirit of hope, not of fear. How do you want to use the time given you? In hope or fear?”
Lawrence look up and stare out the window in front of him. Then he spoke in a resolute voice. “I choose hope. I see now that when we live in hope, not one day is wasted. The more we use time living in hope, the more we will have.”
I didn't hear a reply from the old man, for all he left us with was the picture of his peaceful countenance passing on to a better place.
I could see that Lawrence had taken to heart what the old man said as he covered the deceased face with the tattered bedsheet.
The rising sun’s pure light flooded over the bed, consuming the old man, dissolving the cottage walls, and penetrating the valleys till we were lost in a sea of tossing gold and warmth.
***
I opened my eyes and found us once more, sitting on the hard subway bench, with a tin cup in hand and my sign around my neck. The only thing that didn't change was the slant of the sunlight through the broad windows above the tracks. I don't think Lawrence even noticed the change. His eyes were shut, with his head erect, facing into the sun.
When Lawrence finally opened his eyes to the distant voice over the P.A., he shivered and looked about the tunnel of cement with the buzzing crowds. He noticed his satchel and large suitcase were sitting exactly where he had left them when he went to join the picnic. He only stared at them.
I broke the silence, and said, drawing out a penny from my tin cup, “Thank you for your time. Here is your penny as promised.” I held out the copper coin in my bony fingers.
I saw a look of disgust in Lawrence’s eyes as he peered at the penny.
“A penny for my time?” Lawrence pondered aloud. He reached out to take it, but his hand stopped and hovered a few inches from it. “But it would depend on what I thought my time was worth,” he muttered. “And if I take that penny, then my existence isn't worth any more than a stiff piece of copper.” With a triumphant smile, he announced, “Only a great fool couldn't see that time is priceless!” Lawrence snatched the coin from me and flipped the penny through the air. It landed with a pleasing clink back in my tin cup.
“Very good, Lawrence. You have passed all three tests and have set me free. Now go and teach others the price of time.”
Lawrence's satisfied face drifted off like a whiff of smoke, the dissonant notes of the subway were finally muted, and the white tunnel of turmoil became smaller and smaller till it was nothing more than a pebble in my world.
***
At last, I was back in my world and I owed it all to Lawrence who, unlike all the others I had tested, still had the spark of desire to know the price of time, to live, to be. I do not doubt that Lawrence will teach his children what he has learned, and the next time he sees an old beggarly nobody like me, he will not judge, he will smile and think of me, knowing that beggar or homeless person isn't as ordinary as they may seem.
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