abtw777

He’d been a strong man in his time. I remember him from way back. Tall and strong. Even well into his 90’s – he still stood upright and took on some gardening work to supplement his pension. But the Reaper will have his way, and shortly before his 100th birthday the man breathed his last. It was what came next that disturbed me the most though. I had not realised that the man had even been married, let alone that he had children. But after his death the relatives duly arrived to go through his things. A skip was planted at the front of the house. And it looked like everything went in there – furniture, clothes, books, cd’s, dvd’s – everything. It just seemed desperately sad, seeing all that stuff sitting out there. Not even a yard sale. Not even a charity shop. Just everything junked. I looked around at my own possessions of books, drawings, paintings and writing. I wondered what my relatives will do with all that, when the time comes. But, some might say, it’s just stuff....

He was a big man – peering from beneath his hat with an unfaltering gaze. There was no arguing with the big man – it was, do what he says, or get out. But the group had another big man, and one day the two of them clashed. Like so many arguments, it was over something trivial. The roof of the building had a water collection system. The water had turned cloudy. Was it the roof or was it the filtration? The two big guys screamed at each other. Everyone else kept an embarrassed silence. This went on for half an hour or more. Then a small weedy guy spoke up. Surely the water in the storage tank would decide the matter one way or another. If the water was cloudy then the fault must be with the roof. If the water was clear then the fault must lie further into the system, that is, with the filtration unit. There was a few moments of silence as the inexorable logic of the weedy man’s words sunk in. Then everyone bundled up onto the flat roof and the hatch to the water tank. A glas...