Was I A Good Man?

 

On the large oak table sits a small box that once contained a new pair of shoes. The photographs that litter the table must have come out of that box. The old man looks down at the braces attached to his trousers, lifts a picture of a young man wearing braces and standing in front of a shiny new car that looks kind of 1950s. He can't remember, but the man can guess who the young man is.

He doesn't remember anyone else who appears in the photographs. There is a woman, must have been his wife, young in some shots and older in others, and two young people who must have been his children. 

There are a couple of photos of a house, maybe he lived there? Most seem to have been taken on vacations, various people he can't recall standing in front of scenes he doesn't recognise.

The man somehow knows that he is dying. He wonders what sort of life he has lived. The photographs tell him nothing. None of the people in them are present to ask. Are they just in other rooms in this house? Or are they far away?

He doesn't know. 

Has the photographic evidence spread before him been collected by the prosecution or the defense? Is this a collage of time well spent, or of time passing?

A young woman carrying a tray, tea, efficiently places, pours, is about to leave when she feels she should say something. 

“Fond memories, sir?”

The man desperately wants to grab this woman, ask her just one question.

Was I a good man? 

Then he is distracted by the box and his last thought is about what sort of shoes came out of it.

Parkstreet

Ko-fi