Three Little Birds

Life is overrated. Staying alive… making the most of it… avoiding death… an underwhelming experience. People are confusing. Even when someone who has passed on was a bad person, they act like they didn't deserve to die. Like the other side is full of suffering and pain. If no one has come back to confirm it, how is everyone so certain? Every day new innovations are made—all meant to improve and prolong life. Every discovery that finds a way to fight back against nature is met with cheers from societies too blinded by emotion and narcissism to recognize the true motive behind these discoveries: money.

Like the life support machines many hospitals generously provide to ailing patients to stretch out their last moments. The hospitals don't give a shit about your father dying. They give a shit about the bills you'll be left to settle, after you gather the family around his hospital bed, bid your teary goodbyes, and decide to turn off the life support machine. Each time one of those machines is switched off, an alarm goes off in an office elsewhere and smiles appear on faces. Another one bites the dust. While you and your family grieve, they break out the champagne and toast to the amount of cash you are about to part with. Congratulations! You fell for it. People will do whatever it takes to stay alive, even when being alive means nothing. The thought of dying so fearful that people often swear they wouldn't wish it on their worst enemy. Maybe everyone is a liar. Maybe nobody ever means what they say.

Retired at 59, once upon a time he had been young and full of life. Whatever challenges life managed to fling his way, he always swung hard and hit them out of the park. Life was easy if you kept a cheerful spirit. It seemed fated when he met her, his great love. In months they were engaged, soon to be married and destined to live happily ever after.

John Ofori smiled at the thought. Yes, once upon a time the future had been bright. He examined his surroundings to make out his living room, too big for a man who owned too little. The house was his property, an old relic that aged further into despair each year. His gaze moved over to the door on his right, and he watched as it was flung open by force and soft, scampering footsteps entered the room. 

"Daddy!" came the excited cry from his five-year-old daughter. His stoic face broke into a smile as he held out his arms for her to run into, to escape her mother chasing behind her and find solitude, safety in the arms of her father… But she never made it. Ofori looked on befuddled as the image before him faded. He slowly got up off his knee. The hallucinations were getting more vivid these days.

What had life given him? A bitter ex-wife who would celebrate if he dropped dead right now. What had life taken away from him? A lovely child who had died in his seventh year of marriage. Maybe that was when the problems started. That was when the marriage started to unravel. And there had been nothing he could do about it. He knew his wife still blamed him for the death of their child. Truth was, he wasn't sure he didn't blame himself too. In one bizarre twist, he lost a part of his home and all of his family. "Now is not the time," he muttered to himself while he strolled over to the window. He reached for the doorknob beside the window when he got close enough and turned it to go outside onto his balcony. He had lived alone in this house for a year after his wife had moved out. Then he had warmed to the idea of renting out the downstairs area to a bunch of college students. The money had been good. They threw the odd party once a while, and occasionally, the sound of their speakers blasting music reached his ears in his room, but he was okay with them. They minded their own business, and he minded his; he could accept that. 

The front gate creaked open loudly and his eyes instinctively moved downwards to catch the culprit. It was one of the college kids. The peculiar one, he thought, watching as the boy closed the gate behind him and slowly set off, his hands in his pockets. Ofori lit a cigarette as he studied the kid through narrowed eyes. He was different from the others. He came across as a quiet person, judging from how he normally pocketed his hands and looked down while he walked. You could even describe him as lonely, mused Ofori. He chuckled softly to himself. I would know all about being lonely, wouldn't I? His eyes returned to the receding figure of the kid. Weird, he didn't have earphones plugged into his ears like he usually did. Ofori couldn't see the boy's face, but he could bet it was set to the usual flat and expressionless template. If the kid wanted people to leave him alone, he was doing an excellent job. Slowly the boy walked on, oblivious to the eyes scanning him from above. Ofori sighed and looked upwards. The first rays of sunlight were cutting through the sky, hitting the ground softly and lighting up the morning. Once upon a time, he looked forward to every day with hope. He took a long drag on his cigarette and puffed out. Yeah, once upon a time.