I thought that my dentist appointment was at 11:20 but it turned out to be at 11:50 instead. That meant that I was way too early in the office and would just have to bide away my time in the waiting room thinking alot, looking out the window, trying not to stare too much at the other people waiting.
Some old man with a walking stick entered the room. He was accompanied by what looked like his son-in-law, and he took a seat right next to mine. He greeted the other visitors and started talking. As if we were eager to hear all he had to say. Society warns us that we have to respect older people and be patient with their many idiosyncrasies, even when they ramble on endlessly.
Tap, tap, tap ...
He began by telling us that he is not shy and people like to visit with him, although everyone also tells him that he talks too much. He was born before the war in 1936 (which puts him at 87 years old). The Germans were terrible and the war years had robbed him of his youth. Once he and his friends were playing in the fields, and someone whispered that the Germans were firing their weapons. Indeed, there they were a group of soldiers walking down the path nearby, spraying bullets from right to left. He could still hear it very plainly in his head, but as a small child at the time he didn't know what it meant. It all seemed very unreal and still doesn't make any sense today.
Tap, tap, tap ...
He paused briefly and began tapping his walking stick on the hard floor. In fact, throughout his long monologue, each short pause would be filled with the tapping sounds, as his variegated memories reformed and produced newer illusions. Right, his poor wife died when she was only 52 years old, which meant that he had to live the rest of his life alone. At the time, he had no work so ended up doing odd jobs, whatever he could find really.
Tap, tap, tap ...
There was this nice man who owned a ship, everyone in the town respected him. One day he saw him walking down the same road as he. So he asked him to help repair and build stuff in the shipyard. He knew absolutely nothing about ships, let alone building stuff. But he caught on very quickly and mastered the required skills. That was back when he was a young man, full of energy and his whole life was ahead of him.
Tap, tap, tap ...
His wife was good to him, that's for sure. It was a real shame that she had passed away so early. Together they had accomplished very much, but what a tragedy having to learn to live the rest of his life without her.
Mr Gish? The dentist assistant in her white coat stood at the opposite corner looking for the next patient, and that was me. I stood up, walked past the old man, turned the corner, and I never saw him again.
