Chapter Sixteen — The Entity of Waiting

The train was supposed to leave at ten.

At ten-fifteen a small notice appeared on the board: Delayed.

At ten-thirty the notice changed again.

No new departure time appeared.

Passengers stood facing the board and stared at it, as if their gaze could hurry something along.

Others took out phones, photographed the notice, and wrote to someone that they were running late.

I sat down on one of the benches and set my bag beside me.

At the other end of the bench sat an older woman with a small basket on her knees.

She did not look at the board even once.

She looked as if she had arrived at the station long ago and had already stopped counting the minutes.

⸻

I tried to imagine Waiting as an entity I could talk with.

And in my imagination, she was exactly that woman.

Sitting at ease on the bench, her hands resting on the basket, as if the passing time did not trouble her at all.

"Aren't you annoyed?" I asked.

"By what?"

"By the delay. By sitting here without knowing when we'll leave."

"And do you think your anger would move the train?"

I smiled.

"No. But at least I would feel I was doing something."

"Many people prefer to feel they are doing something, even when that something changes nothing."

I looked at the board again.

Nothing had changed.

"You're used to this," I said.

"Of course. I am Waiting. You meet me throughout the day; you just don't always notice."

⸻

"That sounds exaggerated," I said.

"Really? Think of an ordinary day of yours. You wait for the coffee to be ready. You wait in line. You wait for someone to answer the phone, for the traffic light to change, for the pain to pass, for summer to come."

I thought about that.

"But those are small waitings."

"And there are big ones. Waiting for the result of a test. Waiting for a child to come home. Waiting for a decision that does not depend on you. Life is full of waiting rooms; most of them just don't look like this station."

I looked around me.

People filled the time in every possible way.

They read, talked, ate, scrolled on their phones restlessly.

"Have you noticed," I said, "that almost no one simply sits and waits anymore?"

"I have."

"Everyone tries to fill every minute. As if an empty minute were a wasted minute."

"And perhaps there are minutes that can stay empty," said Waiting. "Dough rises in its own time. Fruit ripens in its own time. Not everything needs to be hurried."

I remembered the times I had waited for something, and only in hindsight understood that during that time I, too, had changed.

I learned.

I matured.

Sometimes I simply became more ready.

"But don't tell me every waiting is good," I said. "Some waitings are just bureaucracy, just delay, just stolen time."

"True," she said.

I was surprised.

"I am no saint. Some waitings are entirely pointless. There is no need to find meaning in every late train."

I laughed.

"Good to hear that from you, of all entities."

⸻

"There is a difference between waiting with a clock and waiting without one," I said after a while.

"What do you mean?"

"When I wait for a train, there is a time it is supposed to leave. Even if it is delayed, I know what I am waiting for. But when you wait for something that has no date, it is entirely different."

"For example?"

"Waiting for someone to change. Waiting for grief to soften. Waiting to have the courage to do something. Those things have no board in a station."

"And so they are harder?"

"Yes. Because I don't know whether what I am waiting for will happen at all."

I fell silent.

I thought of periods when I had waited without knowing exactly for what.

Of years when I felt that real life was about to begin, as if everything happening now were only a preparation for something else.

"There is one waiting I regret," I said quietly.

"Which?"

"The years I waited to live. When I thought that soon, when this or that happened, then I would begin."

Waiting did not answer at once.

"And what kept you from beginning sooner?" she asked at last.

I thought for a moment.

"Sometimes circumstances. There were things I could not change. But sometimes I simply waited for a perfect moment that never came."

"And do you think you were ready then?"

"I don't know. Maybe not. But today I understand I did not need to be ready for everything in advance."

I looked at the passengers across from me.

"Perhaps that is the waiting I regret most. Not the time when I had no choice, but the time when I did have the possibility to do something, and I kept postponing it."

⸻

On the platform, a man passed with a suitcase and a little girl asleep on his shoulder.

The board flickered, but no time appeared.

"Why is waiting so hard for us?" I asked.

"Because waiting reminds you that not everything is in your control. You can arrive at the station on time, buy a ticket, plan the journey. But you cannot make the train leave."

"And Time," I smiled, "I have talked with him before. He is not exactly impressed by our plans."

"Time and I know each other well," said Waiting.

"What is the difference between you?"

"Time passes whether you wait or not. I appear when you want something to happen, and it hasn't happened yet."

"But sometimes waiting is actually pleasant," I said. "Before meeting a beloved person, for example."

"True."

"So why does one waiting feel like a punishment, and another like something sweet?"

"Perhaps because in the first you want the time to end, and in the second you are already enjoying what has not yet begun."

I thought about that distinction.

Anticipation of something good can fill a whole day with joy.

But it is not always simple either.

Sometimes the more we anticipate, the more we fear being disappointed.

"So there is a little fear inside anticipation too," I said.

"Sometimes."

⸻

"Do you have any advice for me?" I asked.

"About what?"

"How to wait without losing patience."

She looked at me with a smile.

"Do you really want advice, or do you want the train to arrive already?"

I laughed.

"Mostly for the train to arrive."

"Then I don't have much to offer."

"Still?"

"You can keep looking at the board every two minutes. And you can sit here and watch what happens around you. Either way, the train will leave at the same time."

I looked around me again.

Suddenly I noticed things I had not seen before.

An older couple sitting and eating sandwiches from a bag, quietly dividing what they had brought between them.

A young man playing guitar in a corner, though almost no one was listening.

The rays of light coming through the tall windows, lighting the dust in the air.

"You know," I said, "when I began writing this book, I thought my thoughts were born mainly in motion."

"And they aren't?"

"It turns out they are also born when I am forced to stop."

"And you're surprised?"

"A little. I am used to thinking of a journey as something that begins when the train leaves."

She smiled.

"But you have already been here nearly an hour. That, too, is part of your journey."

⸻

At last a new time appeared on the board.

People rose all at once.

Bags were lifted, suitcases dragged across the floor, and everyone began moving toward the platform.

The woman who had sat at the end of the bench rose slowly, settled the basket on her arm, and joined the passengers.

"So I suppose we will meet again," I said to her in my imagination.

"Of course. In stations, in lines, and whenever you have to wait for something."

"And I will try to be a little more patient."

"You won't always succeed."

"I know."

She smiled and disappeared among the people.

I boarded the train and sat by the window.

When the train finally left the station, I looked at the clock.

We were more than an hour late.

I still would have preferred to leave on time.

But when I thought of the conversation I had held in my imagination, I understood that not all of that time had passed in waiting for the next moment.

For part of it, I was simply there.

I sat in the station, looked around me, and thought.

And this time, for a change, I felt no need to hurry anywhere.

Continue to Chapter Seventeen: The Entity of the Border

© 2026 Nurit Rozenblat. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed without the author's prior written permission.