5. batten down to fare the wind.

One day we sat on the bridge and started to think what to say to each other.

”What did you mean?” I said.
”Huh?” He responded, like I had just woken him up from a daydream.
”What did you mean when you said that.”
”When I said what?”
”When you said that you don't own anything, that you don't have anything here.”
”Oh, that.”
”Yes that. Now tell, Saint Simon.”
His face turned pale and he was quiet. He looked around and I could see that he was thinking of what to respond. He bit his lower lip, just as I do, and started to speak.

His face turned warmer and warmer as he told me his life story.
That he used to live on the other side of the seas, in a city just like this one.
He told me about his family, his loving mother, his absent father and his brothers disease.
He was the only one who had left. Even his absent father had stayed in the country.
But his brother was dying in a disease I could'nt understand.
His mother told him to leave and find his own life, because here he would just fade away into a daze, lonely and with anger in his heart.
His brother loved The Shins. He had given Saint Simon his CD´s and told him to listen to them when he wanted to remember him.

He told me he would spend all his days listening to The Shins.
I looked at his eyes and I could see that he had accepted his situation.
”So, what. Where do you stay?” I said, silently gasping for air after his story.
”At the beginning, which was a long time ago, I lived with my grandparents. But they got too old to take care of the house so they moved to an retirement home in another city.
I visit them sometimes. I think they're happy. I always play ”A Call To Apathy” to them and they cry and laugh and think of my brother and of me.”

The mood had turned a bit depressing where we sat on the wooden bridge.
The ducks had left for the day and dark clouds were floating in front of the autum sun.
We stared at our feet as they were dangling over the green water.
He started humming ”Caring is Creepy”.
It was kind of ironic, cause that was the first time we both realized that we cared.
And it was a bit creepy.