The song had just ended and the phone music player switched to another random track. As the bass line started he had already zoned out. The last track had left a sadness within him that the new music was unable to breach. It had Bern a song that he had heard many times before, he had even danced and hung along in numerous clubs over the years but today it had made him sad.
Maybe it was the time of year when the excitement of the new year begins to fray slightly and glimpses of the reality start to show through? Maybe?
His fingers pressed the touch sensitive screen and replayed the previous track. There it was again. A shadow falling over him. His brain started to run different scenarios to try and latch into a reason, any reason, however tenuous they were. Still nothing seemed to fit.
Overall he was not sad, quite the opposite but the feeling was strong and he felt his resistance to it crumble. The song had reached the chorus and that’s when it hit.
It was a reminder of earlier times when the world seemed a different place to what it was now. A time where everything and anything was possible. Yet years on that youthful optimism had gone unfullfilled, passed over for seemingly more important issues.
Where was that version of him gone? Had he been swallowed up by time and forgotten about? Left alone with only that song as his tether to the present?
Possibly?
A sigh escaped his lips as he saw the taxi pull up outside the house. He was getting old and it was time to take the next step. They were waiting for him and this was one appointment he could never be late for.