The Old Man, The Sick Man

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

- Dylan Thomas

He used to pretend that he was a tree. You could believe that? He would stand in the garden, close his eyes, and just like that he would plant himself in the ground. His two trunk like legs would shoot into the earth and snake down in a thick, sprawling web of roots.

Then the rainy seasons came and went, each year just like the rest, and now the ashes of all his family and friends lie mixed together in a big earthen jar at the back of the church. Now, it is not that easy to pretend.

They took a cutlass and cut me down.

He likes to speak like that.

They cut way all my roots, and now, he says, now, it's only a set of threads holding me to this place.

He used to wake at four-thirty every morning. He did it for forty-five years, and I always knew that it was his way of fighting the system.

Two and a half hours to myself, and nobody could take that from me for nothing in the world. No sir, no how, no way.

Now he lets himself sleep as long as his body needs.

It's the birds that wake me now, he says, sometimes it's those blasted gardeners.

He says that he loves to fall asleep; loves to feel everything float away and disappear. He prefers it when he doesn't dream.

One day I'm not going to wake up, he says.

I think that I see him smile.

One day someone is going to snap these threads and that is when I am going to float away into the night.

He speaks about it like he's trying to compose lyrics for a song; like it's something that he's looking forward to.

Another smile.

Thing is...

The thing is that he has forgotten that the lamp is on.

He's forgotten that I can see the way that the light bounces off of his soft, wavy face.

He hasn't looked in the mirror in so long, and I think that he's forgotten the way that tears can mark cheeks like war paint.