1. The Man in the Train Station (Tokyo, 1998)
The clock above the platform read 11:23. Not quite midnight, not quite morning. A liminal hour, caught between days. He sat on a hard plastic bench, staring at the departure board that flickered and hummed, listing trains he would never take.
Somewhere nearby, a vending machine coughed out a lukewarm can of coffee. The man who bought it didn’t drink it. Just held it, turning it over and over in his hands.
A woman scrolled through her phone. A businessman clutched a briefcase like a life vest. A teenage boy, earphones in, nodded absently to music that only he could hear.
They were all waiting.
For a train. For a signal. For something to tell them what to do next.
And yet, time refused to move.
A crow landed on the railing and watched them, head tilted, eyes black as absence.
2. The Woman in the Apartment (New York, 2023)
Her phone screen glowed blue against her face in the dark. It was past 2 AM, and she was still scrolling, mindlessly consuming images of other people’s lives, other people’s moments.
A couple’s vacation in Greece. An old classmate’s wedding. A stranger’s perfect breakfast.
Outside, the city pulsed. Neon signs flickered. A taxi honked at nothing. But inside, everything was still.
She exhaled. Closed the app. Stared at the ceiling.
Boredom wasn’t an absence. It was a presence. A weight pressing down on her chest, whispering: this is not enough.
The sink dripped. A small sound. A tiny, ceaseless reminder of time passing.
And yet, she was not moving.
3. The Old Man by the Sea (Kyushu, 2041)
The waves crashed in steady rhythm, marking the passage of time in a way clocks never could.
He watched them, feet in the cold sand, fingers curled around a chipped porcelain cup. The tea inside had long since gone cold. He had let it.
A lifetime ago, he had sat in a train station, watching the departure board. He had sat in a dark apartment, scrolling through someone else’s moments. He had waited.
Until, one day, he didn’t.
It hadn’t been a grand decision. No cinematic moment, no epiphany. Just a quiet, tired kind of knowing. That he had to move. That he had to choose.
Now, he stood on a shore that had been waiting for him all along. The waves came and went, indifferent and infinite. The sky stretched wide and open.
He had spent his life chasing something he couldn’t name. And now, in the presence of salt and wind and open water—he understood.
The waiting had never been about time.
It had always been about him.
And so, he let go.
The cup slipped from his fingers, shattered on the rocks. The ocean took the pieces, carried them away.
And for the first time in his life, he did not try to hold on.
The Weight of Empty Time
Boredom is not an absence. It is a presence.
The slow erosion of what could have been.
A waiting room with no exit—until you decide to stand up.
The Only Lesson Worth Learning
You will never feel ready. Do it anyway.
You will never have certainty. Choose anyway.
You will never be fearless. Move anyway.
Because the weight of waiting will always be heavier than the fear of stepping through the door.
life 
Leave a comment