In a quaint village nestled between rolling hills and winding rivers, there lived a man who spent his days perched upon a weathered wooden chair on the front porch of his modest cottage. His eyes, a mirror to the vast expanse of his thoughts, gazed blankly into the distance as if searching for something just beyond the edge of his consciousness.

The man's mind was a void, a vast emptiness that seemed to swallow up any stray thought or fleeting emotion that dared to cross its threshold. He sat there, unmoving, a solitary figure against the backdrop of the bustling village around him.

Neighbors passing by would stop and exchange fleeting greetings with the man, but he hardly registered their presence. His mind was elsewhere, lost in the labyrinth of his own thoughts and memories.

Some said he was a dreamer, a man who had wandered too far into the recesses of his own mind and had lost his way back to reality. Others whispered that he was haunted by ghosts from his past, memories that clung to him like shadows in the fading light of day.

But the man paid them no mind. He remained on his chair, a silent sentinel guarding the threshold between the known and the unknown, his gaze fixed on a horizon only he could see. And there he sat, lost in the vast emptiness of his mind, a solitary figure in a world that seemed to have forgotten him.

It was the beauty of living in such a quaint town. Or perhaps it was the taunt of a cyclical existence.

Either way, she went on a walk. A mindless, acceptable smile keeping her lips closed as one step followed another.

In the autumn, leaves would crunch under her shoes. Spring and summer were quiet. In the winter, snow was a muffled punch against buried asphalt.

Today, it was a crunch. Early fallers from the trees that nearly hid him on the porch.

She waved. She always waved. He barely inclined his head, eyes not seeing her as he looked. They were foggy or pale. No, he had his sight. He just didn't seem to want to see.

The old man was happy without remembering any of the passerbys that waved or called their hellos. He was happier wherever that silent mind was. Wherever it had been since she'd moved to the town two years ago.

That was two years of walks, not a single day missed. And for two years, she'd waved and carried on.

Today, the gate latch replaced the crunch of her steps.

He still didn't see.

One fine day, the girl plucked up the courage to walk up to the man to greet him. His eyes stared into he distance as she approached, and she wondered if he was even conscious.

At the last moment, his eyes suddenly stared at her, almost as if he was looking straight through her.

"I'm... sorry," she muttered. "I just wanted to ask how you were doing."

"Fine!" the man said with almost a half-scowl, half-grimace, which shocked her.

"Ok, well... I guess I'll be going," she said as she began to walk away gingerly.

"Wait!"