He turned stiffly and with great caution. He meted out portions of his day with a butter knife grimacing as he did. He was an old man well before he’d earned it in years. But being an old man was more of an attitude than a function of time.

He picked a hair out of his meal, and because he lived alone it had to be his own. He chewed slowly and with great intent, rolling his jaws with the look of a zoo animal.

At times it felt like his life had gotten away from him and he could not see it, like a kite gone behind the clouds but still tied to his wrist.

And if he really had that look of a zoo animal, the far-off blank look, had he built his own cage? And was it more comfortable than being out in the wild?

Sometimes he felt the string tug at his wrist reminding him it was there, the kite no one could see, still suspended in air.

Categories: prose, writing

Tags: aging, short form