The bench stories - last story

The bench story 3

This bench has been a constant feature in my daily routine, and the people sharing it through the seasons and years have shared parts of their lives with me, some is real life, most are things I imagined.

Many people I have seen growing old, loosing companions and probably dying as I passed them on my daily life journey. There was also some that I have seen setting on the bench as lovers, then having new members running around them sharing the joys of the bench. There was a lady I passed so many times when she was a pregnant woman seeking some rest on this bench, later she was a mother with a baby, then two children visiting the bench.

So many stories I could share about the people shared the bench, but I never had a chance to find the story behind the bench itself and in who's memory it came to existence. One day, out of months and years of rushing through life I decided to make the time to know the bench. I arrived there with one purpose only, to sit on it and spend time feeling it and watching people, like me, rushing to pass it and pass the people sitting on it.

It was not special, nor magical, it was just an old wooden bench, uncomfortable to sit on unless you are really tired, and there was many people tired of life and living who needed that short rest. I looked at the engraved metal piece reading: in memory of, but it was rusty and very old, the name of the person it meant to remember, to glorify has fallen off. I looked around, underneath, everywhere to find, but it has gone, as the memory of the person, and the bench, me, the people shared it, and the people passed it are destined to same fate, oblivion.

Quickly I was tired of life, and tired of sitting on the bench, tired of watching life going by and tired of trying to find the unknown. I wanted to use my imagination to create a story for the person behind the bench, the memories they wanted us to remember, but I could not. Instead I felt it was my name that was missing, and my life has ended with no trace but a bench on the side of the park watching other lives making their own memories.