'The bench' is originally written as a theatre monologue. It tells the story of a lonely man, sitting on a bench in a city park, day after day. Everything seems quiet. Passengers come and go. Sometimes they take a halt and talk with him for a while … But the bench is mostly a place to wait. Wait for somebody of a long time ago. Wait for somebody who’ll never come, but is always there.
The man on the bench is an outcast who is at the sideline of life, sitting and watching how other people give their lives shape. He observes, reflects on human nature, and throughout his minimal conversations with people surrounding him, the banalities that people say or do in social contexts pop up. The illustrations make this poetic, small sized book on solitude and sadness a little gem.
For ages 15 and up.