The Coachman

The coach swayed with a slow, almost imperceptible lurch, as though the very motion of the wheels mirrored the quiet exhaustion of the man within. Outside, the coachman hunched over the reins, his body leaning with the same weariness, shaped by years of ceaseless labor. In the silence between hoofbeats, the weight of their lives hung heavy, unspoken but felt.

The coachman, a man of perhaps fifty, though time has placed many more years upon his face than truly passed, casts a glance back at his passenger. He is a modest man, thin with hands calloused and thick from the reins he has gripped day after day, month after month, year after year. It is this passenger, seated in the dim light of the carriage, whose clothes whisper of a more comfortable existence, who at last breaks the long silence.

"Good year?" the man asks, more out of a vague sense of obligation to the moment than any genuine curiosity.

The coachman straightens slightly, his eyes narrowing as though he must first think of the meaning of this question before he answers.

"A good year, yes," he responds, though there is a weariness to his voice that suggests the irony beneath those words. "Best year I’ve had in many years. But… all these days are one and the same, you see. There’s little difference when you spend most hours with these beasts, the whip, and the road."

The passenger, his voice betraying neither approval nor disapproval, merely observes, "You work hard then. Day in, day out, without rest."

"Seven days a week," the coachman continues, his gaze fixed on the horizon as though it holds some unspoken truth. "From sunrise to long after it sets. You get up early, you ready the horses, you ride. And at the end of it, you return home to—well, if you can call it home—a small room, empty save for the bed. You know, it’s been weeks since I’ve seen my wife and children… no, months now. The days blur together, and I forget how long it’s been."

The coachman speaks without bitterness, without passion. It is as though he is reciting a line from memory, something he has repeated to himself so many times it has lost all meaning. But in his repetition lies the weight of the truth he has been carrying—truths no one asks about, and truths he hardly bothers to examine himself anymore.

The man in the carriage is silent for a time, perhaps contemplating the weight of such a life, or perhaps pondering his next question in the same casual way one might probe a wound they do not feel.

"You’ll take time off then, won’t you?" the man finally asks, his voice tinged with the faint expectation that such a thing is possible, that the logic of it is simple: a man who works too much will rest.

The coachman lets out a dry chuckle. It’s not a laugh of amusement, but of a man who has long since accepted the absurdity of such notions. "Time off?" He shakes his head. "What would I do with time off? No, no… there is no rest, not for me. And even if I could, I wouldn’t know what to do with it."

Here, a pause, the horses’ hooves sounding louder in the quiet between them.

"And even if I did—" he continues, his voice growing softer now, as if confessing to a truth he has kept hidden, "—I’d only be reminded of how much I’ve missed. How little I know my children, how far away my wife feels, though she’s only a few hours away. I wonder sometimes if they’d even recognize me if I walked in the door. Would my children call me 'papa' with the same warmth? Or would they speak as though I were a stranger?"

The passenger says nothing. What could he say to such a man? To such a life that offers no reprieve, no forgiveness for the time it has taken? The road stretches on before them, endless and indifferent, just as life has stretched before the coachman.

"You’re a lucky man," the passenger finally mutters, though it is unclear if he says this sincerely or out of habit, as though the words themselves have no bearing on the reality they both share.

"Perhaps," the coachman replies, without conviction. He says no more, for there is nothing more to say. There is only the road and the beasts, and the sky darkening overhead, threatening rain.

And so they continue, as all men must.

/Fyodor