Forever

    I used to like big cities. I was excited about opportunities, the general hustle and bustle, fashion and trendy corners. Some things that I would  have called life...But lately I prefer the remote, and a certain whisper that I can distinguish in its quietude. I am about to move from a big city to a small one in the middle of nowhere, and I am looking forward to it.

    One evening in the city of nowhere, I wanted to have dinner with family at a particular restaurant with no central location. The GPS took as to a small shopping plaza on a corner lot, apparently a forgotten place near the outskirts, with wild shrubs on the side of the road, and shabby structures near by. But our restaurant had warm lights in the windows, and as we entered it felt  like somebody's living room: besides all the cute tables for eating, there was a piano in the corner, and an antique hutch with collectibles by the wall. The restaurant was a family business that offered Thai food, and I was dreaming already of their savory vegetable soup with a pinch of specific spices and herbs.

    The waiter was a talkative young man that was trying to be funny and witty, and mostly succeeded. He had a jovial way of teasing, and I enjoyed his natural behavior towards other humans. He was wearing two pairs of surgical gloves, glasses, a mask, and a basketball cap with a long visor, although the pandemic rules have changed and restrictions were lifted, especially in this remote city. I felt that his warm way of interacting with others contrasted with the way he was bundled up and hid away, and simply said to him: "I would like to see your face." He let me know that to be covered was his life, and kind of his choice, and added that his face looked like my son's, just to give me a hint about his facial features that he could not show, and please me in a way...As he wished...

    Waiting for the food, I was staring at the ochre wall in front of me decorated with hand-woven textiles that featured elephant motifs. It was kind of cold, so I went to the car to get some clothes. In the parking lot, a guy with a bike, the type of dude that begs for money,  I thought,  asked me how things were going. I answered "ok," not too eager or too indiferent. Then he was like:

    "Do you believe in God? "

    "I do," I replied a bit puzzled.

    "I mean, do you really believe in God?'', he insisted.

    "Yes," having no clue where he was going.

    The man seemed satisfied and was radiating, so he got closer, wanting to say more. He said that he used to be a bricklayer in the bigger city near by when he was asked by somebody how far he would go if he would have unlimited lifespan, and a space ship with unlimited fuel and  food supply? He confessed he did not know the answer but the other person told him that he would travel forever. Then the man waved his hand and vanished in the dark, telling me in a charismatic way to forget not: forever.

    I went back to the restaurant with my mind still swirling after the unusual encounter and conversation, when my son yelled: 

    "It took you forever... "

    "What...?" 

    Everything seemed surreal as I was fixating again the ochre wall with elephants, and thinking about the forever thing. The food came and  it was too hot to eat it right away, and I was still not really able to eat glass noodles with chopsticks, so I had more time to think and share the story to those near...

    After we finished the meal and ended up being the last customers left in the small room, the waiter came to hang out some more and told as how inflation started to creep in slowly in the last few years and that he no longer could afford what he used to. But he would not want anything that he would not work for, he said. And he digressed a bit mentioning with a certain emphasis that he believed in the "invisible thing" that made us all human, and that's why he was telling us about all that. 

    As we drove home in the night, on those less travelled roads,  I could not stop thinking about forever and the "invisible thing..."