If you browse Google Maps for a certain part of rural Lincolnshire and go down to Streetview, you may spot a man, standing on the grass verge by a crossroads. There’s nothing exceptional about him: medium height and build, dark trousers and a big coat, his head bowed and the little you can see of his face blurred out by Google.
He’s not doing anything, just standing by a road in the middle of nowhere, but you think for a moment about how he conveys a particular feeling of stilllness and then you laugh at yourself: it’s a photo. How could he not? Everything is still.
Maybe sometime later, you’ll happen to be driving through that certain part of rural Lincolnshire. Maybe that’s why you looked at the map, maybe it’s just coincidence. It could be weeks, or it could be years later. But you’ll remember the crossroads, even though it’s just like one of dozens out in the country. You’ll remember it because there’s a man standing there, medium height and build, dark trousers and a big coat, his head bowed, and as you slow and drive past, he’ll look up a little, and you’ll realise that it is not Google that has blurred his face.
Drive on though: it is not you he is waiting for, and he has been waiting by that crossroads for a very long time.
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