Departed

As he slowly opened his eyelids and gazed at a young smartly dressed boy on the ground floor of the building in front of him, the old fellow serenely watched as the former quickly grabbed a ball from nowhere and abruptly marched out of the man's sight. He had eagerly waited for him to appear again, but the boy was a no-show. 

Even when his wheelchair was ushered to the dining room, his eyes adamantly remained at the window till it remained in his blind spot. The breakfast that day was specially provided by a wealthy benefactor who had volunteered a couple of times in the hope of erasing his name from the people's bad books. Even when his friends were all busy devouring their food, he remained silently at his table and gazed at the window nearby. When all attempts to feed him failed, they left him in his room. Contented with their decision, he quickly but gradually, wheeled his way to the window earlier and, to his surprise, he saw the boy, but this time he was accompanied by someone- someone older and definitely younger than the man. 

The old man saw no ball in the child's arms, but in its stead was a book. On the contrary, the boy seemed happy with it, and as he skipped happily, the oldster saw the ball. But the ball was no longer in his hands, for it remained discarded on the floor. He meekly watched the ball flutter in the wind till it was out of sight as the duo walked inside. 

He took no notice of the child for the next few days, but one particular summer, as he was to be transported to the next room, he caught a glimpse of a moving truck and out came the two with a man -who looked like the father of the boy-entering it as a load of boxes were being moved into the truck. He nonchalantly watched them leave till they were out of his sight.

A decade passed by in the blink of an eye, yet the old age home functioned just as it did then. The old man, however, remained fragile with age and knew that he could no longer witness another decade pass. For all this time, he had only one wish and he had hoped for it to come true but, for some reason, he couldn't rest, not knowing if it would ever happen now that his days were numbered. 

As his eyes dimmed for his afternoon nap, he could see a figure entering the first floor. The figure, as his surroundings brightened, appeared to be a lad nearing his adulthood, and to the old man, it was undoubtedly the young boy from years before.

He had wanted to run all the way downstairs and hug the stranger, but his feet failed him. However, the lad didn't look pleased at all and instead walked away, to the oldster's utter dismay. 

But, despite the outcome, the old fellow was glad to have lived to see it and turned his chair over to the shelf nearby where a frame with a black-and-white photo of a smartly dressed boy in front of the ground floor of the building in front of him stood. With a sad yet contented smile on his face, he closed his eyes.