When Ashton, my grandson pointed out the empty bench near the Poconos mountains, I could not help wondering about the countless stories it must have held. And today I decided I would tell the twins just one. Not an old couple waving at trains, not a little boy greeting an engine driver, but a young man who sat on that bench every evening and waited for someone he loved.
He was tall, shy and far more comfortable with silence than with speech. The forested path behind the bench was where he first met her. She was the kind who walked lightly, as though the earth enjoyed holding her footsteps. She laughed easily, and never seemed to run out of dreams.
He fell for her the way people fall asleep, slowly and then all at once.
She liked him too, but in a teasing way. She told him once, half joking and half serious, “If you want me, you cannot just sit around. Walk with me. Move. Win me.”
He nodded, but he was comfortable with waiting. Waiting for courage. Waiting for the perfect moment.
So he chose the bench.
Every evening he sat there and watched the trains pass. He imagined that one day she would return along the tracks, run toward him and say she had changed her mind. That she was happy just to sit with him.
One day she walked down the path again. Not toward him, but past him. She paused just long enough to say, “You are still here. Still waiting.” There was no anger in her voice, only disappointment, which is heavier than anger. “I hoped you would stand up and walk with me.” She looked at him one last time and continued along the forest trail, the same trail she had asked him to walk with her.
He wanted to get up then. Truly he did. But habits are powerful. Waiting is a comfortable prison. He told himself he would rise tomorrow. Tomorrow became next week, next month and then something far sadder. She stopped coming altogether.
Years passed and the bench grew older. Moss crept over its legs. Paint peeled. Trains still thundered by, indifferent to the heartache sitting a few feet away. And the man who had once held the possibility of love sat exactly where he always had, waiting for a train that would never stop and a girl who had learnt to keep walking.
One morning a group of hikers found the bench empty. For the first time in years the man had not come. No one knows where he went or what he finally understood. But the bench understood. It had been waiting too.
It seems the girl was right. Love and success rarely reward the one who waits endlessly. It walks beside the one who rises, steps forward and chooses movement over fear.
Maybe that is why the bench is empty today. Someone finally learnt that to win love, you cannot sit and hope. You have to rise and walk.
Did I see a new spring in the twins as they walked away after the story?
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to bobsbanter@gmail.com
