The Old Man In The Corner

 

     The man stood in one corner of the drugstore, wearing sando and old shorts and a cloth mask hanging desperately below his nose. He seemed to be in his seventies. Evidently frail, he appeared to be startled and started looking confused when one pharmacist started calling a female name—it turned out the name being called pertained to him. He went to the counter and gathered the medicines he bought, and as he slowly and feebly walked away from the counter, he said, almost a whisper, voice in the brink of breaking, “I don’t know why we keep buying these medicines when they say she's hopeless and would soon be dead anyway."

     The guard pushed the door open for him and he stepped out, the morning sun quickly embracing him, as if to console him, as if to reassure him that its light would always be with him no matter how dark these days were.

     Indeed, for a lot of people, everything seemed to be tinged with sadness these days.