A Broken Man

• Daniel Sheath, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2009

The man stood, his hands clasped together behind his back and his head bowed. He was wearing a black suit and a crimson coloured rose was slipped inside his shirt pocket. Its petals were shrivelled and crumpled and altogether without life and his trousers were held in place by a leather belt, which was drawn tightly around his waist and fell down around his black shoes, obscuring the laces.

The man’s hair was a greasy and quite unattractive black and it fell about his eyes and ears in stringy clumps which had not been washed or looked after for days. He was beardless, save for a few small wisps of hair that protruded from about his chin and above his lips. His face was sallow and lifeless, altogether unmoving expect maybe for his eyes which were a pale grey in colour and would have been thought of as dead unless his eyelids did not occasionally slip over them in the movement of blinking.

He was staring directly ahead, at the bulk of a solid grey gravestone. It protruded from the ground and was adorned with blue, red and white flowers (that greatly resembled the one in his shirt pocket). They were placed on the top of the stone and about the base and held no beauty, save for the memory of one who is much loved.

His life had been without trouble or worry until just a few days ago, when his father had died in a car accident. His death had been so unexpected and the extremity of it had hit him swiftly and without mercy or sympathy.

A single tear fell from his eye and rolled softly down his swollen cheek, it caught the light as it fell and it looked altogether more like a liquid crystal, the only beautiful thing in the young man’s world, which had almost, to him, no meaning anymore. The tear reached his mouth and then vanished as it died on his lips.

The hill on which he stood seemed miserable and lifeless to him, a forgotten beauty and one that he and his father had both loved as they stood and gazed out at their house and the silent countryside. However now the hillside was a place of grief and mourning, its very existence spoke the word sorrow. It was as if a dark shadow had forever fallen across the hill.
The man then slowly extended his right arm and ran his shaking finger along the newly engraved inscription on the gravestone.

He was alone, a broken man.