Japanese proverb

• George Vlahos, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2004

He’s a regular at 7pm.Walks repetitively up and down the tavern entrance.
Carrying a small wallet in his hands, tired old hands, skin pale and mottled, fingers swollen and gnarled.

People slide past to avoid him; they fear he might invade their privacy, that once they start talking to him he might become a nuisance. He won’t. Someone says he has Alzheimer’s, from years of substance abuse and that from time to time they put him in hospital. He soon escapes. No one notices he is gone and no one cares.

The most intriguing thing about him is the little wallet he carries and the way he guards it with his life, as if it once resembled his mask of sanity. It’s so personal, so exclusive and so peculiar. The contents of the wallet are the one thing that he will be remembered by. He won’t have a gravestone or a space on the family mantelpiece, but the work he does will, in the, bring happiness to the people who live in the areas through which he has passed.

There he is again on the evening piss, sitting, smiling, and contemplating. It must be fun in a way – to be content with life. Yet is he? Currently as a resident in a half-way house for hard-edged criminals. He stands and hobbles towards the door. People look down at the books they’re not actually reading, pretending not to notice him.

He concentrates on the little wallet he holds. The drink flow slows down, and more and more people stand up to get some shut eye. He is crowded by them now, and for a split second, he is one of them-not the outsider he always has been.

This time he is lucky. The bartender is an old one, and the manager isn’t there,
So it’s easy for him to obtain complementary whiskey for a while. With one shoulder leaning towards the cold, heavy surroundings which sustains him.

He reaches for his little wallet. He withdraws a handwritten note and proceeds to throw it onto a bar stool, while checking to see if anyone is watching. They aren’t.

He grabs a handful of nuts, and then releases them from his old, yet powerful, grip.

He then requests a bottle of whiskey in which the old bartender gladly hands to him, in an understanding of his situation, yet prepared for anything.

First the man takes the drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man. He has nothing except for his day’s work. Life is simple. He disappears into the crowd.

Minutes after, the bartender notices the note discarded by the man on the stool, even if doesn’t return. The note mentions; that most people who drink alcohol find it a useful social facilitator, normal part of occasions happy and sad and they have no problem with it. For those addicted to its use, however, alcohol is the occasion. In life he was frowned upon-shoved into a new bottle daily. People wanted to be rid of him, and now people wanted to get rid of his whiskey. They will never succeed. Fortunate really, because that bottle is his gravestone, his special place on the mantelpiece. They should be left alone forever.