Passing Stranger

By Mihangel

2. Only a look and a voice

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn

If old men stare at boys in the street, they run the risk of being labelled dirty old men. I am not a dirty old man -- am I? -- and I did not stare. But I could not help noticing.

I first noticed him two years ago. Towards the end of the afternoon, now that I had retired and acquired new habits, I often ambled down to the letter box on the main road to catch the last post, or to the corner shop to buy milk. There are several schools close by, and sometimes I coincided with throngs of kids on their way home, larking, laughing, squabbling, older lads with older girls, younger boys in noisy gangs, younger girls in giggling gaggles. And for none of them did I spare a second glance.

But on that September day one boy struck me as unusual. I noticed him simply because he was alone. Thereafter I saw him no more than once or twice a week. I never timed my walks to coincide -- as I said, I am not a dirty old man -- but whenever I did see him he was invariably by himself, withdrawn, pensive but not openly morose, evidently a loner. I felt an affinity.

When I first noticed him he looked about fourteen, middling height, ordinary, no way head-turning. Yet he stood out, to my idly considering mind, as different. At first our eyes did not meet. Then one day they did, and for longer than the fleeting glance one normally allows a passer-by. He was a private person, I saw from those eyes, thoughtful, shy, lonely, with more than a touch of pain. Like myself when young. Like myself, to some degree, when old. We might understand each other. And he seemed to take me in as more than an unknown and unprepossessing greybeard. He too seemed to recognise that we had something in common.

From then on, every time our paths crossed, we exchanged that look. But British reserve is strong, and my reserve is stronger still. It was six months before I ventured to wag my head at him as we passed, with a small smile and a quiet 'Hi!' And he returned a half-smile which seemed to understand.

Over the next year, on our intermittent meetings, we always acknowledged each other that way, in gentle empathy. One cannot go further with strange boys, can one? At least I could not. After all, I am not a dirty old man.

But I did think about him.

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