willemann avatar

The Andersen Chronicles #21

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Went to the kitchen, picked up an apple, sat on the kitchen counter, and looked out the window.

At the nursing home across the street, lights were on in the gym. A hunchbacked old man stood between the parallel bars. At first, he seemed frozen in space, un object immobile, a pillar paralyzed by infinite inertia.

Then a tightening of his hands and a tremble traveling up his arms and shoulders morphed into a slight bending of an unsure leg, the lifting of a slipper clad foot and finally: a completed step.

The old man tilted up his head, grinning.

2 comments add one below

  • avatar

    D.M. almost 9 years ago

    Inspiring! (So nice there is a gym in the nursing home.)
    And then, on the other level, the title making it an analogy, so important
    not to feel defeated, to strive, to make the attempt. Bravo!

  • avatar

    T. Willemann almost 9 years ago

    Thanks! Watching the old man, it dawned on me, that the challenges I experience and especially the mistakes I make writing in English must appear to outsides much like the old man’s effort to complete the simple task of taking a step. But the feeling I get, when I succeed, is, I’m sure, comparable (at least to a degree) to what the old man felt upon completing that step.

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