20:20. A glance at his watch tells him all he needs to know. He sighs, staring out of the window into the bustling city. He’s traveled the world and seen more of its secrets than one would think would be possible in a lifetime. None of them are quite without the hustle and bustle of the modern world. Back in his time—no, he stops himself. He is not yet old enough to start having the superiority complex he once used to hate growing up, but as he sighs into his well-overpriced coffee, he knows that he's wrong. The world around him has changed, and it was no walk in the park.
Speaking of, he looked as far as the window allowed him towards the park, looking for the shadows that he once was a part of. It was hopeless, he knew, but part of him still wished every day that the children he grew up playing with would manifest themselves in their older age, as he was. He took his last sip of coffee and checked the time again. Time had not moved an inch, and he was not expecting it to, although he had been losing track of time recently. Some might have thought he was weird for having his watch in military time, but he had long learned to stop thinking about others’ opinions. Settling himself in the quiet cafe, he notices the people around him. When he first started to frequent these cafes, he didn’t care much about his surroundings. He was too preoccupied with making his life something meaningful. However now, watching everything around him pass in a blur, he wished that he would have before. If only he had known that there was no point to all his rush, known that nothing meaningful would have come out of it.
As his eyes wander around the room, they settle on a young man who quickly averts his gaze when he is caught staring. He chuckles slightly to himself as he thinks back to the attention he often receives from young men and women, who always seem too shy to talk but manage boldly to give him their number. Unbeknownst to them, he is much too old for them, and for love in general. That was something he had tried in the beginning, hoping maybe a partner would fill the dull ache that seemed to be carving in himself every day. It had been long ago, and he was not a lover anymore, no longer walking around with the bright spring in his step, and chest every day.
He stood up and left a hefty tip as usual, well aware that their stipend was quite disproportionate to their hard word. He walked quite slowly down the street, a complete contrast to the brisk steps surrounding him. He had all the time in the world with nowhere to go. He ended up in the park that he had observed before and sat down on one of the weathered benches. He watched the sun fall across the city skyline, waiting until the sole light was the streetlamp before standing up and heading to his flat. Glancing down, his watch was still at 20:20. He grumbled about the length of the night before climbing up to his apartment. In the beginning, he was a partier and would have always been at another's house had he not fallen into his current predicament.
He always wondered what had happened to him. He never knew if he should refer to the before as a past life, or the beginning. He had considered calling it another world as well and found that there was no reason not to. As of now, he was sticking to his time theory, although it was growing harder to believe as the man in the mirror was unchanged. There could be a multitude of explanations, but he had given up figuring it out much too long ago. He sat on his balcony and watched the fireworks explode in the sky, admiring the striking colors that had captured the entire city. And when he glanced down at his watch, the face now displayed 20:21.
- anushka c.