The Old Man and the Search

It was a wild, dark, hopeless night.

A cold wind was whirling over the tall and still trees. A road to nowhere cleaved the towering hills that touched the sky, which was covered with dark clouds roaring lazily above the earth. Beneath the trees, a mysterious old man sat alone on a bench.

His face was pale. He seemed lost in his thoughts, crying without making a sound. Suddenly, the sky burst into tears. Yet there was a difference between the rain and the old man’s tears. The rain was only water; his tears were pain.

He had left his home early in the morning, but now it was late at night. A light rain was falling. The drops looked like fireflies in the only light coming from the road lamps. The rhythmic pitter-patter of the rain seemed to whisper about the pitiful condition of the old man. Slowly, the sound lulled his consciousness into numbness.

He closed his eyes.

And entered a mysterious world.

He saw a dark-skinned child sitting on the ground, watching other children playing with their expensive toy cars. They were rich and beautiful in his eyes. The child did not seem jealous. He simply enjoyed watching them play.

After a while, he gathered the courage to approach them.

One of the children looked at him and cried, “Ugh! You black and dirty boy, stay away from our toys. Don't touch them!”

Another child spat on him.

The others laughed.

The child stood there for a moment, unable to understand why they hated him. Then he lowered his head and walked home. He wanted to tell his parents what had happened.

But when he entered his house, he found his parents fighting.

They were shouting at each other. His mother was crying.

The child stopped crying himself. He wiped his tears with his shoulder and quietly entered his room. He sat on his bed, then stood up, then sat again. His small body trembled with fear.

Suddenly, his father shouted.

He began beating his mother.

The child froze.

He watched helplessly as his mother cried. The scene became unbearable. The boy lost control and wet his pants.

Then came the sound of thunder.

The old man on the bench suddenly opened his eyes.

He was back.

He looked around. The tall trees were still there. The rain was still falling.

But the child was gone.

He became deeply curious, almost desperate, to know what would happen to him. He closed his eyes again and tried to return to that mysterious world.

Nothing happened.

He tried again.

Nothing.

He remained seated on the bench, thinking about the child.

Who was he?

What would become of him?

A few moments later, his attention was drawn to the fireflies moving gently among the trees. Their soft light calmed him. He watched them until they slowly disappeared into the darkness.

Then, without knowing how, he was there again.

The mysterious world returned.

The child was gone.

In his place sat a gloomy twenty-five-year-old man in a dark room.

His eyes were empty, and his lips were cracked and dry.

He sat alone, lost in thought.

“I can't live without her,” he whispered. “She left me alone in this cold-blooded world.”

He remained silent for a while.

“She is John Keats's La Belle Dame sans Merci, a beautiful girl without mercy. It has been years since I saw her face, touched her hand, and kissed her soft cheeks. She is happy in that world, I guess. Why not me? Why am I sitting here alone with an unhappy heart?”

He lowered his head.

“Questions. I have no answers to them. Every morning I wake up and think about her. Another day. How will I live the rest of my life? I should stop thinking about her. She doesn't care about me. I should not either. I must be strong.”

He smiled bitterly.

“I miss her.

I miss her eyes.

Her hands in mine.

Her beautiful smile.

That mark on her face.

That movement of her head whenever she agreed with me.

That expression on her face whenever she disliked something.

Her cute nose.

The dark lines beneath her eyes.

Her kiss.

Everything.”

His voice became weaker.

“But she is not here.

Never will be again.”

He pressed his hands against his chest.

“It feels like hell. I struggle to breathe. It is spoiling me, physically and mentally. God, oh God! Why is death one-sided? Why can't I stop thinking about a person who is not here in this world?”

He looked toward the darkness.

“Will things ever turn out fine, or will I remain an unlucky soul forever?”

A cry suddenly came from another room.

His mother's cry.

She had found his father dead in his room.

The young man stood there silently.

The news shocked him, but not because he loved his father. It was because he suddenly understood what his father's death meant.

All the responsibility would now fall on his shoulders.

He was not ready for another burden.

But life does not ask whether a person is ready.

He had to go out into the world and earn money to fulfill the basic needs of his family.

He started working as a laborer in a textile factory. The wage was small, so he worked day and night. The work slowly changed him. He began to look older than his years.

One day, after finishing his working hours, the factory owner forced him to work overtime.

He was exhausted.

For the first time, he refused.

A heated exchange of words followed between him and his manager.

The next morning, he no longer had a job.

He returned home helplessly.

When he entered his house, he found his old mother dead in bed.

He stood beside her for a long time.

He remembered the child he once was.

The child who had stopped crying when he saw his mother crying.

But this time, he could not stop his tears.

A few drops silently slipped down his gaunt face.

The old man sitting beneath the trees felt something break inside him.

A cold breeze touched his face and brought him back to the bench.

He could not stop his own tears.

He did not know why he was crying for that young man.

The world was full of people, yet the young man in that mysterious world was completely alone.

And somehow, that loneliness felt familiar.

He looked at his own hands.

For a strange moment, he felt that he had seen those hands somewhere before.

He quickly shook the thought away.

He wanted to enter that world.

He wanted to help the young man.

He wanted to sit beside him and tell him that he was not alone.

But he could not.

He wanted to become his friend.

But he could not.

“Chi… oh, chi…”

He lowered his head.

“The helplessness of humans…”

He closed his eyes again.

Slowly and swiftly, he entered that dark and mysterious world for the third time.

This time, he found himself on top of a high mountain.

Dense and tall trees covered the land. The grass was dark, almost black. No birds inhabited the trees. Silence was everywhere—in the forest and in the air.

There was no wind.

The branches hung still and static.

The young man was there.

But he was no longer young.

His beard had turned white.

He was an old man now.

Yet he behaved like a child.

He sat on the ground playing with a toy car, singing a song in a low and steady voice.

The scene was strange.

Almost unbearable.

Suddenly, his eyes fell upon a doll lying on the ground.

He picked it up.

He held it tightly against his chest.

He kissed it again and again as though it were his late beloved.

Then his mood changed.

His face became angry.

“You left me,” he whispered to the doll.

He shook it in his hands.

“I searched for you everywhere, but you were nowhere to be found.”

His voice trembled.

“You know what hell is?”

He looked at the doll.

“It is not a place.”

He pressed it against his chest.

“It is the feeling of your absence.”

He began to cry.

“Without you, my heart aches. My mind bursts. My hands shake. My legs become paralyzed, and my body stops working.”

He hugged the doll again.

“Promise me you will never leave again.”

He began whispering.

“Never.

Never.

Never…”

Then something changed.

He looked toward the forest.

His parents were standing there.

Both of them were young.

Both were smiling.

They were happy together.

They walked toward him, showering him with love. His mother kissed him. His father lifted him in his arms. They praised him as the most handsome boy in the world.

For a moment, the old man became a child again.

He smiled.

He basked in their love.

Then, suddenly, the visions began to disappear.

His parents turned away.

“No!”

He ran after them.

“Wait!”

They disappeared among the trees.

He chased them madly and obsessively.

He did not see where he was going.

At the edge of the mountain was a deep abyss.

The man sitting on the bench saw it.

He suddenly stood up.

“Stop!”

He began running.

“Abyss!”

He shouted.

“Abyss! Abyss! Don't go there!”

The old man kept running.

“Don't go!”

The man from the bench reached the edge.

The figure of the old man suddenly disappeared into the darkness.

The man from the bench stopped.

He looked around desperately.

The old man was nowhere.

He searched the dense forest.

He searched the bushes.

He searched the road.

He searched the mountains.

Nothing.

He began to run faster.

He did not know what he was searching for anymore.

The rain began falling again.

He heard the sound of the wind.

Then, for the first time, he looked at his own reflection in a small pool of rainwater.

For a moment, he saw the face of the child.

Then the young man.

Then the old man.

All three faces were his.

He stepped back.

The world became silent.

He suddenly understood.

He had been searching for the child.

He had been searching for the young man.

He had been searching for the old man.

But perhaps he had never been searching for another man at all.

He had been searching for himself.

He took one step forward.

The ground disappeared beneath his feet.

He fell into the deep abyss.

There was no scream.

Only darkness.

And somewhere, far above him, the fireflies continued to shine.

He searched for him everywhere, everywhere except within himself; Perhaps the man he was looking for was the man he had spent his whole life running from.