{"id":15561,"date":"2013-10-08T19:55:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T19:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oncubamagazine.com\/?p=15561"},"modified":"2013-10-08T19:55:33","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T19:55:33","slug":"waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/waiting\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The bus stopped at the road from Guantanamo to Santiago de Cuba. A malfunction had to be fixed and it was going to take a while. I got bored of being sat and thought of getting off. I had seen a man sitting on the edge of the road. I took a picture on him and I was watching it now. I decided to get off. It was almost midmorning. The scenery was beautiful, although traces of Hurricane Sandy could still be noticed: there were palms and other trees with their top off and houses without roofs.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">But the landscape was still beautiful. I walked around the bus, stretched my legs. Finally I approached the seated man. He was talking to someone near him, an old man, who according to the depth of his wrinkles should be about ninety years.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What are you doing? The old man asked.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8211;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 &#8211; Waiting&#8217; the seated man replied.<br \/>\n&#8211; Who are you waiting for? The old man asked again.<br \/>\n&#8211; &#8216;No one, I\u2019m not expecting anyone. I just sat here to wait.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The bus driver told that everything was arranged, that we were going to continue traveling. I got on the bus, but the strange conversation troubled me. If he was not expecting anyone, what was he expecting ?<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">That seemed to me a dialogue between two characters of Carson McCullers in a southern novel of few peripeteia and high psychological density. Perhaps I was exaggerating; maybe the man was just tired. Or maybe he was expecting for a certain time, or for the truck that took him to work, o r whatever. It was most likely that that piece of conversation not to have major impact. The bus started and the man remained sat on the edge. The old man shuffled away. I was somewhat depressed: in the eyes of that man I saw the same despair I once saw in the ones of my neighbor Lazaro.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Lazaro was the father of Diosdada, our neighbor on the first floor. I do not how old he was, I just know that he was very old. When I met him, he walked with a bad limp and was full of infirmities and bad temper. He always treated me well. &#8220;You are well educated, he told me, I&#8217;m tired of mouthy brat kids &#8220;.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Some evenings, when I came from school, he was rocking on his balcony. I always liked listening to old stories, so I usually stayed for a while with him. He was obsessed with the past: &#8220;In the corner where now the winery is, there was a department store. They sold everything you wanted and all was good and cheap.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is not like today , that the items in the stores are all useless&#8230; Ancient shoes and clothes lasted forever! Do you see these moccasins? They are from 1957 &#8230; and I still wear them! &#8220;Sometimes I dared to contradict him:&#8221; But my grandfather says there were many things in the stores, but he almost ever had money to buy them. &#8220;&#8221;That would be your grandfather! I did have my money &#8220;-he got bothered and the conversation ended there. That happened regularly.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">But one evening I found him sitting on a park bench. He was staring into space. I asked him something, and he took time to answer me: \u201cI am sitting here helplessly. I&#8217;ve noticed that I have no illusions, no desire to argue with anyone. &#8221; I got worried a bit: &#8220;Does something hurt you?&#8221;. He looked at me and smiled : &#8220;My soul aches&#8221;. &#8220;Do you want me to accompany you to your apartment?&#8221; &#8221; No, I&#8217;m going to stay here&#8230; waiting.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">A few days after Lazaro died in his room, in his bed, quietly. He died of old age, my mom said. But my father was blunter: he died of boredom. I\u2019d wish the road man to get up and start walking. I\u2019m sure he did it, he was not an old man. My grandfather used to say: The only thing you wait for is death; you have to look for all the rest.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The bus stopped at the road from Guantanamo to Santiago de Cuba. A malfunction had to be fixed and it was going to take a while. I got bored of being sat and thought of getting off. I had seen a man sitting on the edge of the road. I took a picture on him [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2446,"featured_media":15465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1019],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[33671],"class_list":["post-15561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-one-thousand-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Waiting  | OnCubaNews English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/waiting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Waiting  | OnCubaNews English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The bus stopped at the road from Guantanamo to Santiago de Cuba. 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