There, and back again
There's nothing like leaving familiar surroundings and then returning for helping you to cope with this harsh fact of reality: no one is indispensable. Life goes on, with or without us. Umberto Eco illustrates this with the following little story:
"At the age of twenty Salvatore leaves his native town and emigrates to Australia, where he lives as an exile for forty years. Then at sixty, having saved his money, he comes home. And as the train approaches the station Salvatore daydreams: Will he find his old friends, the comrades of the past, in the cafe of his youth? Will they recognize him? Will they make a fuss over him, ask him with eager curiosity to tell them his adventures among the kangaroos and the aboriginals. And that girl who once... And the shopkeeper on the corner... And so on.The train pulls into the deserted station, Salvatore steps onto the platform under the blazing noonday sun. In the distance there is a hunched little man, a railway worker. Salvatore takes a better look; he recognizes that man, despite the bent shoulders, the face lined with forty years of wrinkles: why, of course, it's Giovanni, his friend, his schoolmate! He waves to him, anxiously approaches, and with trembling hand points to his own face, as if to say; it's me. Giovanni looks at him, shown no sign of recognition, then thrusts out his chin in a greeting: 'Hey there, Salvatore where are you off to'?"
One of the "Po Valley Epiphanies" in "The Miracle of San Baudolino" by Umberto Eco, taken from "How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays."
