The Longer Nights

Thin blue fabric brushes past each other, treading past the mud-splattered floor, not quite above it. The young man, clad head to toe, takes off his mask and lets out a breathy sigh. Collapsing onto a bench, the sound shakes the older man awake. A warm, gaunt smile welcomes the tired man, and a moment passes before a word is spoken.

“Doctor.” The older man nods respectfully. The young man glances over his figure, slowly.

“Working on it,” the young student closes his eyes with a weary smile, facing back the other way.

“I can see that,” he shifts his posture to face the student more. “How’s that going for you?”

“It’s… uh… it’s going,” forcing his eyes open, he sits up straighter. “It’s been pretty tough lately, but I just tell myself it’ll all be worth it when I’m old and loaded,”

His eyes finally take in the man in front of him. He’s dressed in brown, patchwork fabric, stained with dark, permanent blotches. Underneath the tattered coat, a red shirt, fraying at the edges, can be seen. A slightly unkempt beard covers the latter half of his face, while the same hair hovers above his deep, brown eyes. His leather work boots suggest there was more to him than messy. Late fifties, no more early sixties, by the color of his beard, the student thinks. Homeless or a farmer, the back of his mind whispers.

“No offense.” The student adds, in retrospect.

“None taken,” he puts his hands up for a moment, then sets them down. He lets a breath out before reaching behind his back. “I’m old, and not doing too bad for myself. Want one?”

The older man tosses him an unwashed orange, pulling another one out for himself.

“Good thing I’m no apple farmer.” The older man laughs a little too hard at his own joke.

“Ha, yeah,” the student forces himself to chuckle. He regrets ever considering him anything other than a farmer. His well-groomed nails struggle to grasp the orange. He gives up.

“What kind of doctor are you tryna be?”

“A… uh… brain surgeon.” They nod together.

“Wow. It hard?” The man starts gnashing, leaning back and throwing his arm around the side of the bench.

The student thinks for a moment. “Yeah, it’s pretty hard.”

A snort. “You should try planting oranges,” the farmer says. The student forces out another chuckle that ends abruptly. His stare towards the ground blankens.

“Why?” the farmer continues, and throws away the peel of his orange.

“Huh?”

“Why be a brain surgeon? Why be a doctor?” A flurry of bites confronts the orange, quickly explaining where all the stains on his jacket came from. Wiping his mouth, he adds, “and don’t give me that ‘because I want to save lives’ bullshit. Tell me why you want to do it, for you.”

The student faces an uncomfortable silence he’s never faced before. Not like all the times he was asked “What do you want to be when you grow up ?”, not like right after he said “I don’t know.” It wasn’t blank sections on icebreaker questions, it wasn’t softball interview questions. It wasn’t like opening decision letter after decision letter, struck over and over by unfathomable regret at having tried at all. No, this was new. It was a little horrifying.

“You happy?” The farmer looked inquisitively at the student, who was hunched over his legs with his fingers in a tangle. “Hello?”

The student thought back to every night he had left behind. Every moment he had thrown away to chase ambition. All the minutes and seconds he had pushed away because of what he had believed.

“What is success, to you?” The student did not answer the farmer’s question. He spoke without looking at him, still mired in deep thought.

“That’s a question, there.” He took another bite of his orange, and spoke while chewing. “I’d think it’s different for everybody. But for me, I don’t know. Maybe it’s knowing I can be satisfied.”

The student closed his eyes and tried to think of a reason why he was there, in that moment. Why he was drowning in a sea of his own sorrow, why he was trying to convince himself the grass was greener anywhere, anywhere but where he was. And why he had spent so long trying to forget he had ever wanted anything else. And all he could come up with was “because doctors are successful”.

“I don’t know.” The student finally responded.

The farmer sighed and leaned back from staring at the student. “Well, you’re not the first.” Before the student can speak, he continues. “Plenty of folks chase an idea of success. What they think is fulfilling, what other people would look up to. Nothing wrong with it. Works out sometimes.”

“Did you want to be… an orange farmer?” The student picks the words off the floor of his mind.

“Oh, no.” He chuckles, looking down at the fruit in his palm. “Wanted to be an astronaut. Up til I was about thirty, and still working on my old man’s farm.”

“Wow.” He was truly surprised, but it didn’t make it onto his tongue. “What uhh… stopped you?”

“Whaddya think!” A hearty bellow escaped from his lungs. “Couldn’t muster up the coin. Farming ain’t so bad, though. Love to learn it, learn to love it, they say. Is doctor-ing the same
Hesitance passes through the student like a ghost. “In, in a way, yeah.” He wonders why he was lying to a stranger. He starts to grasp at the orange in his hands, the farmer looking at him curiously. As they sit together, a speonna need a new pair of those.” The farmer finishes his orange in one final bite.

“No need.” The young man stands up, orange in hand.

A myriad of questions he wanted to ask him started to dam up. How do I let go of this? He knew the man couldn’t answer that one. Do you ever still wish you could be an astronaut? The man’s twinkle in his eyes could answer that question a thousand times. Are you happy? The young man, in his heart of hearts, would’ve loved to hear a no. But he knew. More and more thoughts bubble over in his mind, but none escape his mouth. Instead, he says, more sincerely than ever before,

“Thank you.”

Confused, the farmer replied appropriately, and the young man began to walk away. Looking straight ahead, he began to peel the orange.