Solitary
Once, there was a man. He was on the older side, probably over 50, but maybe not. It was hard to tell. He lived alone, without even a pet. Just alone. His family was long gone and far away, their infrequent visits weren’t much comfort anyway. He was stuck with his life, and there was nothing he could do to change it, and it hurt, but he just chugged along, day after day.
In the mornings he would struggle with his wheelchair as the sun peeked over the horizon. Sometimes it was a beautiful sunrise, but he didn’t even notice anymore. He would get dressed, in red and grey sweats. He would wheel out of his tiny apartment and down the hall to the elevator. No one else took the elevator that early. It was just him. He would take it down and go outside. He would wheel over to the Hudson river waterfront, and he would work his way downtown. People who saw him thought he was mental, or just very disabled, but in reality, he was just doing something to keep his life from becoming one day after another just sitting in his wheel chair.
He forced his way downtown, wheeling with strength. He always wore long sleeves, even in the middle of August. He wheeled more with his left arm than with his right -- maybe the wheelchair was defective, or maybe his right arm was stronger, only he knew. He had a fixed expression on his face, looking forwards. He probably saw everyone who whizzed by him, on a bike, or on rollerblades. Not many of them saw him. Sometimes he would be noticed, and then forgotten, even by the people who frequented the path every morning, like him.
He made his way from 79th street to 14th street, all along the bike path. There, he would turn around and work his way back. He did it every day, except for the few occasions when he had a doctor’s appointment, or on the rare occasions someone visited him. He wheeled himself down the Hudson river, seeing everyone who was on the path enjoying the day. He didn’t enjoy it himself, but he could see that they did. He was just a solitary man who had no comforts left in life, yet he kept chugging through it.
The people he saw on the path had potential. For example, the young couple walking together, or the family of bikers racing their way uptown, or the young man who was wearing a suit and tie, just walking from place to place along the beautiful waterfront. All of them had lives to live, people to see, things to do. This man had none. He lived alone, just for the sake of living. For the rare occasions someone said a kind word for him, or the once in a while when he was met with a smile. Even though his lonely life was long and hard, he kept living it. And some days, he watched the sun rise through his small window, and he realized just how beautiful the world could be.
