An old beggar, and a curious boy

For months, I have always seen him squatting along the circular pathway in the outsckirt of a park where I used to pass by. His head bowed and rested on his slightly bent arm supported by his left knee. With palm partially open he stayed there for hours hoping for some good hearted ones to drop some alms into his partially open palm. He is not thin, only haggard looking, accentuated by deep wrinkles over his face and greying hair. Since I am too poor in reckoning ages by simply looking at the face, I just can't tell how old is he; so, I would just roughly say, more than 80 years old. If I were him, I wouldn't do what he was doing -- it was too tiresome for me; of course not for him, because he did it.

Once, I saw a young boy bending over to talk to him; and as I was nearing them, the boy was about to leave.

The next day, I was again threading the same way. By coincidence, the old man was still on that very spot where I saw him before talking to that same boy. The boy was now sitting with his bottocks directly on the bare ground and legs stretched out. His hands were strategically placed on both sides to give him support and balance. Every now and then, he bent his right knee so he could clasp it with his hands for comfort. The boy's attention to their conversation was so intense. Sometimes inclining very close to the old man in order to hear or make his point clear perhaps.

The boy's behavior is common to a lot of us. It even reminded me of my own curiosity with the stories of matured people that I really wished back then that days woud speed up so very soon I would already become like them. And now that I am -- I found that I am indeed right of what I believed it would be.