COFFEE & BISCUITS

A young man was driving along a remote, narrow, winding mountain road, when he spotted an old man walking by the side of the road.

“Are you going to the Pandora Mouth?  I can give you a ride,”  offered the kind driver.  Since it is a one-way road, with a direction sign pointing to “Pandora Mouth”, the old man can only be heading to Pandora Mouth.

When the car paused next to the old man, the old man was wheeling a heavy cart (for groceries) and supporting his strides with an umbrella that was specially made to have a crutch handle. 

The lines on his forehead are deep and stretches from one side to another.

The driver helped lift the old man’s bags into the car; they were very heavy.

The driver asked whether he lived in the village.
He said yes, and added, “It’s not far off from here.”

The car continued on the winding road.  Nowhere is the village in sight several minutes into the ride.  It only got longer, with no houses on the way, which gave the opportunity to produce conversation.  The driver asked if he lived in the village for long.

The old man said he had lived there for more than twenty years and his kids all are living in the city.  He told us that about twenty people currently live in the village.  If one looks at the island from the plane, one can clearly see the road leading to it like a pandor a neck.  There is an marine observatory at the end of the road, he said.

The village is still nowhere to be seen.  The young man remarked on his surprise of the length of the road.

The old man said walking on this road is good for his health.  Also, driving on this road can improve one’s driving skills.

All the while, the young man was thinking this old man gives off an air of erudition in the way he talked.  Although the lines on his forehead are deep, his voice has a ring of energy to it.  Is it the years of walking that long and winding mountain road?

Finally they arrived to a roadside pointing left to the pandora mouth.

The car turned into another even narrower road, on both sides littered junks, ranging from piled up mountains of paper boxes, an abandoned car, dispersed parts of cars, and an abandoned school.

The old man said the school was abandoned because everybody had grown up and there are not enough of children in the village.

Before he closed the car door, he instructed the young man to make a U-turn to get out of the village.

Who is this gentle recluse living in squalor and waste?  Is he a professor?  A researcher at the marine observatory?

The encounter left the young man with more wonder about the random people one may meet in the world if one may just pause a moment to look.