Old Man at the Bridge by Ernest Hemingway
This story, Old Man at the Bridge, is written by American writer Ernest Hemingway who was born in 1899 and died in 1961, which shows the aftermath of war. An old man sits alongside a bridge, exhausted and covered in dust, many people are hurrying to cross the bridge with their families and belongings, but he is too tired to proceed, the villagers who are fleeing from the civil war to protect their life are noticed like the asylum seekers.
The narrator spots the old man as he crosses the bridge to see if the enemy is advancing behind them. When the narrator returns, most of the other evacuees are gone but the old man is still sitting by the bridge. The narrator engages with him, trying to rouse him to keep moving toward safety. The old man says that he comes from the village, where he was taking care of animals. The narrator wonders why the old man is telling him this until the man explains that he doesn’t want to desert his creatures, so he was the last person to leave his village. He worries about the goats, pigeons, and a cat that he has left behind to die. Meanwhile, the narrator worries about the advancing forces who will surely try to kill them both. When the narrator urges the old man to try to walk until he can catch a truck that could carry him away, the old man can only fall back down because of his animals but the narrator concludes that he cannot help the old man to save his life and asks him to leave the place quickly.