The old man and the nosea

October 09, 2005

The old man was sitting by the window; from time to time he glimpsed at the years-old calendar on the wall; it was kind of torn, dirty and showed 2785 more days to live; he always smiled when looking at the weird and a bit spooky gift he’d received at his 14’th birthday.
A brand-new Suv had just stopped in front of the house; the owners got out of it; a youpie family, dressed from Gap or H&M; the man’s head was shaved, he had a bit of tummy inspite of his sportive look, clear proof of his white-collar job; an It worker, perhaps..
The old man took another sip from his mug of herbal tea; another taste of his scented pipe.

The three visitors entered the house: “hello”, said the woman; she wore a miniskirt, running shoes and leather jacket.
“hello”, said the old man
“sorry to bother you, we’re kind of lost, the car’s cpu won’t let us go any further cause it doesn’t find the map of this place; the Gps doesn’t seem to work, and neither does our satellite mobile. Can we use your wifi to download an online map?”
“yep; no gps here, i’m afraid” he smiled, serenely. “no wifi either”

“what? That’s impossible! We’re living in the 21st century, after all!” The bald youpie almost yelled. Their teenager was looking around the house, in amazement.
“yep, 21’st century, all right. Still, no wifi here”

“then, at least, can we use your wire communication, to call for some driving assistance? They could drive here and bring us some tvd’s with the maps.. We’d pay you, off course, for your trouble”

“sorry, no connection whatsoever; luckily this is a place forgotten by technology ; guess you should’ve taken some less-fancy car”

The couple was silent with shock; only their son seemed to be oblivious to their tragedy.

“yep.. Technology doesn’t solve much now, does it? My advice to you is to take the road back and push the car by hand for a dozen of miles; after the lake, you should get back to satellite coverage”

The three of them left, too shocked to even say goodbye. The old man sat back on his rolling chair, took another sip of tea and lit another pipe.