I'm watching this older man negotiating his way up the stairs, pausing every few steps to catch his breath. He's almost reached the top where a new challenge awaits him.

At the bottom of the stairs the woman who could be his wife is looking at this old man's back while she chews on a large sandwich with tomatoes falling out.

Suddenly feeling like I too am being watched from somewhere near, I turn my head to see a young stylish woman glancing at me just before she embarrassingly looks down at the ground.

Just beyond her I see some unshaven teenager with a slight belly carrying a guitar case staring at the young woman who was looking at me.

At any moment in time there is a web of visual interactions criss-crossing the platform as the crowd collects and then disperses again.

How far back or how far forward this unpredictable broken path of connected people watching other people extends is impossible to measure and not easily imagined.

There might be ten people connected this way, and then none, and then more than fifty, and then just a few again.

The more crowded it is the more connections there are, increasing and decreasing as the evening progresses, oscillating more and less, damping out until there is not a single soul left in the world.

A Buddhist monk once told the famous physicist Richard P. Feynman the following proverb of the religion:

"To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell."

Taken from his book What Do You Care What Other People Think? which I just finished reading and thought was great.

That line over there in front of the cash register was shorter than the others, so I took that one because the others were waiting for me outside. I could see in advance that the girl sitting in front of the cash register was not in the greatest of moods. She had this smirk painted on her face, and she never once raised her eyes to look directly back at the important customers.

The same treatment was repeated with me. She stabbed the flat screen with dagger-like motions, rang up two-fifty-five, and I handed her the blue ten euro note. I held my hand in place hovered in the air as she groped around for the money. She handed me back the small change, along with a red twenty euro note.

Caught off guard for an instant, I hesitated slightly before gathering up enough courage to react. I told her politely that I thought perhaps she had mistakingly given me back the twenty euro note when it should have been a five, because you see I had paid with ten.

For the first time she raised her eyes and looked at me directly with pierced vision, her grumpy glance becoming even more irate. She had been trained well to beware of bums like me trying to short change the store.

"That's impossible," she snapped back at me. I responded with a smile, "Excuse me but I originally gave you ten, so I think you meant to give me five back, not twenty." Trained not to think, she kept her lips sealed and just shook her head back and forth. She waved me off and tarted helping the next customer in line.

I'm normally a pretty honest guy. I should have insisted until she called the police to take me away, but that look on her face combined with the growing line of impatient customers and  their rattling overflowing shopping carts hinted that I should just accept this turn of fate and continue with my life.

I walked away wiithout making a big deal, accepting my good twist of fate although underneath I still feel a little guilty about it all.

Sometimes even non-heroes can cheat death. Why become a tragic hero when it makes much more sense to first ignore the call to adventure until the time is ripe. Besides, how many of us are non-heroes at heart anyway?

If I had such a big ugly wart, I would certainly have had it removed ages ago. Getting up every morning, looking at myself in the mirror and being confronted by such a disgusting protrusion would have made me feel very uncomfortable or driven me insane.

Obviously the old man does not seem to care, hasn't yet noticed it, or has simply become so attached to this extra facial ornament, that living without his big ugly wart would make his life unbearable and perhaps even not worth living.

The famous and well-loved Luciano Pavarotti dies at the early age of seventy-one.

Meaning that if I end up living that long I have only a little more than twenty years to go.

Something for me to think about.

The skinny guy wearing a dilapidated baseball cap shuffled up to me and asked shyly if I could spare him some change. Hesitant but desperate at the same time...

"Can you spare some change?"

"What for?!"

"I just got out of prison and they put me out on the street without a cent..."

"So how'd you end up in prison of all places?!"

"Well they picked me up off of the street where I was sleeping in some alley. I had nowhere to stay, sorry."

So without thinking much except that I was in a generous mood for some reason, I reached into my wallet and gave him a 2 euro coin.

"Is that enough?"

"Yes, yes, thanks alot..."

Right at the moment I was hoping we had reached some kind of repore, the poor homeless guy had disappeared around the corner. Say good-bye and be gone.

Never to be seen again. Oh well, there goes my two euros.

Once again we had decided to make an appointment in order to discuss how events had progressed since the previous time we had met.

Mutual goals, comparing, the differences between then and now. Had it already been nearly one year ago? Maybe more.

When I arrived at the meeting place, the smell of damp wood and uncertain swirls on the floor, I was surprised to be confronted with a visage that had aged much more than the year that had passed. Was this the same person or not?

During the meeting before, he had confessed to me in a confidential moment between silences that although he had not aged for many many years, the next year would bring forth an acceleration of growing older, more and more quickly. Nothing to be concerned about. Or not?

I took my seat next to him and we shook hands. Just let it be. The dying part was about to begin.

Alright then, so let's discuss how events had progressed, the objectives we had predefined and described so clearly on paper, how far each of us had been able to proceed.

When he ripped the pen out of my hand I thought he was about to draw down something meaningful, say on one of the two yellowish napkins lying between us, but that was not to be.

Instead, he used the pen as a kind of pointer, aimed at the most upper left-hand corner of the room, saying nothing for a minute and then uttering something I couldn't quite understand.

Sorry?

I said that the next time we meet it will have to be in this same place, and then we will finally have something meaningful to discuss.

Alright, see you next year. Or even later perhaps.

Life is dauntless in its need to keep on testing you as if nature's ultimate goal is meant to make you give up and throw in the towel.

Not unless you are a survivor.

On my way to the fitness center on my bike I passed a young blond-haired girl on the side of the road and she waved to me saying "Hello Mr. Gish!"

I did not recognize her at all, but no matter.