Location: Peshawar City (Picture Ownership Unknown)
Chipped blue paint. Old red bricks.
Remnants of the past.
This old man. This man clad in white smiles under the tangle of wires through which sparks buzz as the copper tries to catch up to the new world.
A new world, nestled within which are traces of the ancient.
This here is a crevice hidden away in the multiple crevices of Peshawar City. This here is a moment that tries to hide away and nestle into the folds of nostalgia. This here is history. This here is melancholy.
These wooden doors of blue want no part in the openings of the 21st century. These bricks of red still echo the clatter of age old horse carts drawn past this street, the touch of their hooves still a memory imprinted on the worn stone of red above which the old man’s shoe hovers, as if wary, so as not to disrupt the footprints of history.
Why is it that the old man smiles? You ask whether he is not lonely. Perhaps his comfort lies in the cold stone upon which he sits. Perhaps the blue doors watching over him assure him, for what can be more reassuring than these chipped wooden doors of blue that yet stand the test of time? For what can be more beautiful than age old bricks of red having your back, harmonious in their unity? Even so, the tangle of wires bothers him not. These are snakes of modernity that can do him no harm in this element. He is in his territory of bricks, of stone, of century old blue paint. He hears the welcome clatter of hooves, the vibration of wooden wheels of a horse cart being drawn on the red pavement. He sees history, he hears time, he feels young.
This moment.
It is his to cherish.
Leave the old man be.