Thursday 27 August, 2009

Today is my last day of work and thus likely my last commute through the intersection of Liverpool and Parramatta Roads. From the top of the hill it appeared the traffic lights would turn green as I approached so I slowed down to ensure I’d stop at the red to have a last special melancholy moment with the forgotten glasses.

Alas, something big had happened in the previous days. The glasses had moved dramatically, about half a metre into the trafficable line of the road. I was aghast at this latest development – the most significant movement of the glasses I’d witnessed to date. They must have tried to make one last desperate attempt to cross Parramatta Road, to get the hell out of there and head for the quieter streets. That’s certainly what I would have done well before now.
But tragically it appeared the glasses’ most recent confrontation with their nemeses had left them considerably worse for wear. The remaining arm had been severed and left back near the verge and it was becoming hard to discern whether they were a pair of glasses or a broken piece of car trim. Their lustre had been well worn away. They were no more than a piece of spaghetti trodden into the tarmac and any looks or thoughts had been totally pummelled out of their soul.

But I knew what they were and what they had been. With all the life, movement and commotion on that busy intersection those pair of forgotten glasses did it alone. They gave their best against the odds and for that they can rest proudly. Without specific intricacies I knew what those glasses watched during their existence in a tough, arduous and noisy environ. Despite their brief yet stoic interlude the world will keep rolling on at its ever-growing, frenetic and inevitable pace.

Time had certainly wearied those glasses and their story had run its course. I love the irony that my last bicycle ride to work through the Liverpool and Parramatta Road intersection coincides with the last rites of the glasses on the tarmac. The forgotten glasses stood still for too long and ultimately succumbed to the effects of weariness. In this world that’s just the way it is.

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