Time for Watching

Time for Watching
By
Bob Conder

Approaching the house brought back a flood of memories I didn’t expect. But then again what in life is expected?

    
     The Professor had been a sort of mentor to me. I loved going to his home and listening as he spoke, to no one in particular, about whatever it was he was working on. His writings were world renowned I had heard. Nevertheless in his office as he wrote and researched, and wrote some more, there was no other world.

     I don’t even remember how I met the Professor, I just remember being there from a very young age. It wasn’t until years later I realized he was watching me. Not like he would watch a research project trying to find the hidden secret, or even a baby sitter so mom could work. He watched me as I watched him work. Kind of a mutual watching society I guess.

     The Professor had a strange sense of humor he only knew two jokes and told those at the most inappropriate times. One was about a girl, a horse, and bag of tricks. Either I was to young or uneducated about it’s content, but I never understood it. For the other joke he would look around as though he was going to reveal the secrets of the universe, lean in close, and ask, “What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?” With the anticipation of a four year old at Christmas time, he would wait for your reply. I would just shake my head and say, “I don’t know.” With a slight giggle he would answer, “Elephino, get it? Hell if I know?”  to which I would politely laugh.

     After a time he began to ask me to help research a subject and I would spend hours turning the pages, looking for clues, or information, or sometimes just names of bugs, plants, spiders, anything to make his green house better. I’m pretty sure my research was not about finding the answers or asking the questions. It was about our relationship.

     When high school came, along I spent less and less time with the Professor, not for any specific reason, I just found girls and sports and musicals and cars and other things to interest me. Yet every time I went into the library, I wondered what he was doing that day.

     As college came and quickly went, I seldom went home. Oh the holidays were good, but even they soon became a bother, then graduation, advanced degrees, marriage. All the things, which in reality are the thieves, we give our life to, the things that take us to where we should be and move us from where we had fun.

     Today was one of those days, when we are moved to where we should be, out of respect and love, from where we want to have fun. But today they are the same place.

     I stood a moment longer, reflecting on my life and the moments we spent together here at this very home, divided between the library and the green house. Time where I watched things grow and bloom, and fought the adversaries of bugs and spiders. Where he watched me grow and find answers.
After everyone left, I walked into the now disheveled green house and wept.  

THE END