LUXEMBOURG-VILLE — A resident of the capital has found herself overcome with melancholy after recalling how spritely and young the roadworker on her street looked when he first appeared nearly a decade ago.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” she said. “A notice from the commune about a six-month project, the temporary no-parking signs whose expiry dates never come, and this young robust fellow with a shovel in his hands and a look on his face that said, the world is mine.”
“And my, how he’s aged, and how the endless work on this street has taken its toll,” she continued. “During those first few years, I witnessed the sparkle disappear from his eyes as he and his crew dug and filled the same hole, week after week.”
“Passing him in my car a couple years back, I observed the wrinkles on his face, the grey hairs peppering his once thick black mane,” she added. “And now I see he’s a veritable old man, and as I sit here in my window looking at him and musing, I realize that I too have aged, that he may look at me and lament the passing of years, that the march of time cannot be halted or even slowed, and that one day we will both meet the same quiet end.”
“And that yet these roadworks will live on forever.”
