The Burden

He shifted under the oppressive weight of the burdens on his shoulders.

"The burden of desire,

The burden of pain,

The burden of loss,

The burden of gain..."

It should have snowed today. But the post-autumn sky had left nothing but dead leaves and a chill in the air which made all his white hair stand on end. When he walked, the breeze cut through him like a frigid razor-blade and made his eyes water. He blew warmth into his numb hands and rubbed them together to bring them back to life. He hadn't had a morsel to eat since last afternoon when he had found loose change under the park bench. It had been enough to buy him a soup and a newspaper. And he had read about explosions in the London subway, explosions in the Kashmir valley, explosions in Afghanistan, explosions in Madrid's trains, deaths in Biafra, deaths in Iran, deaths on the West Coast of America, deaths in the eastern islands of Asia. And he had walked out of the restaurant and vomited the soup out on the footpath. He had looked around guiltily, at the people walking past him. They had such hatred in their eyes for him. He could have sworn that one of them had called him vagrant under her breath. He had felt a warm tear emerge on his eyelids and trickle down his cheek. On page 12 of the newspaper there was a picture of a child in a famine-stricken village in Sudan. It was nothing but skin and bones, except for its stomach which was swollen up. It was trying to crawl to a food camp so that it could eat. The child couldn't walk for it had no strength to walk. Its boney, spindly legs couldn't stand the burden of its body. With its last breath and last ounce of strength, it tried to crawl to the only thing that could keep it alive. A vulture stood nearby, watching and waiting for the inevitable.

Another teardrop had crawled down his wrinkled cheeks and had fallen on the child's picture as his hands trembled. He had looked at the picture and then at the soup that he had vomited on the footpath. He couldn't bear to think of what he had wasted, and how precious little there was of it in the world. And he had gone hungry for the rest of the day. But the body is a harsh mistress. It craved for food, and his self-imposed penance had not been, he realised, a matter of choice. And that is why he had looked across the road and had frozen inadvertently. A half-eaten sandwich wrapped in shiny aluminium foil lay in a bin. His mouth watered. His head swam. His body hurt because of exhaustion. His stomach growled, craving that sandwich, begging and pkeading him to move, to cross the road and to pick the sandwich up. But he didn't move. He couldn't.

When had his life become a burden? When had it come to a point where his survival was more important than what he believed in, what he stood for? Going hungry for a few days wouldn't kill him. The bread that he had abstained from eating would feed a child who would go to school and grow up to be a great, learned and accomplished man. It would perhaps feed someone who would change the world. Who was he? A vagrant? A tramp? A burden on society which was stuck with the responsibiltiy of keeping him alive because it had spawned him and failed him? An anonymous entity with an existence without purpose? A failure? An object of no requirement, of no use to anyone or anything? He closed his moist eyes and saw the dying child from the picture in the newspaper bending down like Atlas and bearing him on its shoulders. The child had died because of him. He had crushed it with his mere existence. He opened his eyes and looked at the sandwich across the road. And stood frozen once more.

It was gone.

Someone had taken it while he was lost in his thoughts. Someone who really deserved it. Perhaps a poor woman had taken it to feed her starving child, perhaps a starving young man had taken it and was fueling his energy to work for a better future. It did not matter who had taken it. It only mattered that he hadn't and had helped someone more worthy of life, survive another day.

He hadn't noticed that in his initial shock and ensuing joy and relief, he had stepped off the footpath and had walked a considerable distance. And he hadn't noticed that a car had approached him at a great speed, unable to stop in time... And he would not notice much else henceforth. Death can come in many different ways and very unexpectedly, just like an unexpected breeze or drizzle can put out a perfect flame. But death can rid you of all your burdens in a single, silent second of darkness. His death was not silent, but instantaneous.

"The burden of flesh,

The burden of breath,

The burden of birth,

The burdren of death..."

A few kilometres away, a middle-aged man in a pair of jeans and a leather jacket sat on a park-bench. He surveyed the wooded greens and the path that ran through the secluded spot where he sat, through his horn-rimmed spectacles. He was waiting and watching. At a distance he saw a little a girl cycling towards him in a pink bicycle with frilly ribbons on the handbars. She had black, ebony hair, dark eyes, pink lips and soft skin, he could tell. His breath became sharp and harder, his eyes had a glint of lust, like the glint in the eyes of a predator who has sighted prey. Or the glint in the eyes of a vulture waiting for a creature to die so it could devour it. He began to tremble with anticipation. Though, he had eaten in the morning, his mouth watered. But it was a hunger of a different kind. He took the last bite out of a sandwich he had found in a bin. He was fortunate to have found a snack just lying there for him to take for free. He was going to need all the energy it was giving him for what he was going to do. He crumpled the aluminium foil it was wrapped in, and threw it on the grass. The foil lay on the soft green blades, as the man approached the little girl in the little pink bicycle.

"Hello, sweetheart. Are you all alone? Do you want some candy?"

A shiny wrapper gleamed in his palm. The girl's eyes widened. She took the candy bar from the man's hand and smiled.

"Why don't you come for a ride with me? I'll buy you lots of candy."

She nodded. He picked her up and put her on his shoulder. "Wow! You're a big girl, aren't you, sweetheart?"

She giggled.

"Don't worry. I'll take good care of you. I'll show you a good time."

The aluminium foil lay still in the sunshine, like a drop of silver on the green carpet. Until a strong gust of wind blew it away. And then there was only the grass.

It should have snowed today.

"The burden of virtue,

The burden of sin,

The burden of a life,

That kills from within."