The man on the Bench

         The man was always there, on a bench facing the west to feel the sunrise and to watch the sunset. He was older, I would guess in his late eighty's or early ninety's and only ever moved to feed whatever birds had come for his stale bread that day. I passed him walking to work for what had to be over a year now, and whenever I came back his dull eyes would watch the sunset like there was something magical about it with a slight smile that always reflected my own mild frown.

         Another year had passed and I had accomplished my dream of becoming CEO of the research I had worked at for all these years. My riches expanded past anything I had ever dreamt and I had all but forgotten about the man on the bench. Until one day in late winter, my car had broken down and walking became my only option, so I began my walk to work. The man still sat on the bench, the sunrise melting the small flurries of snow that had fallen on to his back. The lazy old fool had sat there for two whole years, doing nothing with his life while I made my riches why doesn't he do anything? I took the bench across from him and asked my thoughts. The man looked at me with hollow eyes as if he had forgotten about everything but the sky itself. I realized I would never get my answer and sneered at the man before finishing my walk to work.

         That was the day I lost everything. The company had new plans and I wasn't a part of them, I was fired and any money I had invested in the company was theirs now. I would lose everything, my riches, house and car, I pleaded with them but there decision was final. I walked home that night and found no man sitting in the bench only mummers of the people around me that a man had died this morning. I stared at the empty bench thinking about the smile that reflected my frown, before finishing my walk home.

         The next day I was called to come and get the things from my desk and turn in my security pass, but when I got there a thought occurred to me I would not let them run the company that I built. I snuck into the projects room and began to destroy everything I could find before running into a large blue capsule that beeped and murmured in the corner. I remembered seeing a paper run by my desk that talked about the development of a time machine but I didn't think that it existed. I stepped inside, whether it worked or not was unimportant to me, I needed hope that I could change the mistake I had made and save my empire, save my riches. I punched in the day before to the screen and hit enter.

         I found myself in an empty lot, and asked the nearest person the date. She replied that it was the correct date but fifty years in the passed. I could still fix this I told my self, I found that the lot I was standing on was the future site of a my research firm so I bought a house near by and waited. The years past and I watched as the city around my began to grow. The skyline raised and by face began to wrinkle around the small frown that had never left it.

          One cold fall morning, I grabbed my cane and took a walk down to the park. I knew my joins wouldn't make it far but the cold air freed my lungs from eighty years of office air and I kept walking. But age has a way with all of us, eventually my joints got to me and I quickly found a place to sit. On a bench facing west, the sunrise warmed my back and comfortably, I sat until I watched for the first time the gold rays bleed though the branches over the ground casting shadows over the people on the trail. Spitting pinks and reds into both the clouds and dirt until both the heavens and earth just for a second became one.