When you let things be...

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
— Ansel Adams

How often he sat there, on the porch is hard for me to ascertain. In my mind, he had become inseparable from the essence of warm decay which lingered on his cottage. The sloping walls, the staring windows, the gaunt doorway... Each crumbling in the wake of ephemerality.

Old as it may be, the place retained its charm... Even though the decay was marked, in man and house alike.

I had resolved to call upon him a hour ago, and the fifty-minute odyssey from my humble abode had better make its own story some day.

 

I had reached the isolated stretch of land where his cottage stood.

I walked across that pavement where I had bruised my knees many years hence- over, and over and over again, with no regard for the pain, just for fun... And I cannot express to you the ecstasy one feels when the memories of the innocent past dawn upon you in the hour of need.

And an hour of need it was indeed. I had to let him know.

I was destined to inherit the tumbling mass of bricks.

Carefully stepping over the culvert which lent the place its sordid stench, I reached the house at last. There he was, sitting on the porch, with his eyes closed... I dared not approach him, his sleep is easily disturbed...

Such innocent tranquility is only observed in the slumber of two: the ones who stand at the dawn, and the ones who face the dusk.

The old man had lived a long, long time. How long is not for me to know, his rest seemed to me as being timeless.

His face was furrowed with years of worry, all laid to rest at present, but deeply evident. He had been a handsome man some time...

The porch itself cast shadows onto the courtyard, but the light filtering through the banisters added to the idyllic scene. At that moment, the man was a part of the house... Not permanently, of course (nothing is permanent-neither the house, not the pavement, nor myself.) But... One cannot separate two souls so deeply entwined, whether they breathe or not.

I turned away hastily, quickly passing the culvert and loped down the pavement... The house and the old man were one. 

To speak of separation is impossible. Grandpa, I let things be.