In Memoriam

They strangled him. Little by little, they sucked the living breath out of him as he watched on, face taut, mouth a grim line. His head was always bowed; no one ever knew what went on beneath the unassuming stammer of his. He would come when bidden, finish his job faithfully, and go back, empty handed. They never noticed him, except when he went away. They drove him away, the same people who spearheaded the new world. The others complained, their light bulbs needed fixing, their TVs showed disturbance. Then a new man came, and he was forgotten. Some still waited for him, sure he would come back; this was just a temporary replacement. Years went by when temporary became permanent, and permanent became senior. And one day he returned, drank his cup of tea that looked watery when he sipped it. Head lifted a little in the exultation of the moment, to be bowed once again as he stepped out of the little world they had constructed for him, the world he deserved; the world that he would never find, once he walked out of the house. It took ten years of merciless strangling… and then the worst of it all; leaving the kill panting in the semi dark, forgotten, cast away in the indifference that finally killed him.

“What are you thinking?”

“No… He must’ve a really strong neck to survive for so long…”

No, come to think of it, his neck was really insignificant… It was his shoulders. Square ones, that never sagged.

He died, and they sung sorrowful songs and conducted memorial services that lasted for an hour, where they had tea and snacks after it. Of course, no one was really hungry, but who else would finish all this food?

He died, and he had a quiet funeral while pretentious mourners wrote pages of memoriam with their afternoon cup of coffee. But then, he never protested.