The Birthhday

The birthday The old man is grumpy the women sit in the kitchen talking about him, “to think he drove all that way without a break.” Don’t they know driving is simpler than walking? The women in the kitchen mean well, but he refuses to be a hero of things of little importance. He knows better than to wish he was young again; his youth a hellscape of insecurity and lack of confidence. In the night, he hears whispers of voices of the past keeping him from sleeping well, but unkindly thing they would shut up. He knows he is near a wall, not an Israeli wall built by mean people who want to keep the treasure of the land they occupied like thieves of ill-gotten gains. The wall is massive and fluid, nothing can pull it down resisting the attempt of religions to penetrate its secrets of what is behind the other side of stillness. The people of faith are a noisy lot ready to kill for a conviction for an illusion that gives them meaning, even if it is at the cost of hatred. But the old man is of this world and influenced by the throng of voices that claim to have found the TRUTH! There is within him a charnel of doubt to cast his freedom of thoughts away like an old winter coat and jubilantly sing hymns that dampen his yearning for knowledge.