Page 56 - My Creative Writing Portfolio

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OLD MAN IN AN ALIEN PLACE

Each morning, his coughing wakes me—
a rough stitching of breath and silence
before the day begins.
From my window, I see him,
his broad body bent,
leaning against the wooden rail,
as though the weight of air itself
were too much to carry.

I ache for his chronic illness—
a body large and tired,
slow to forgive the years.
Yet from his lips rise
thin, wavering threads
of cigarette smoke,
curling upward
like thoughts that cannot settle.

When sunlight spills into the yard,
he shuffles toward the fence,
rests his head against a pillar,
eyes roaming the street—
pausing on passing faces,
lingering,
as if rehearsing a conversation
that never quite begins.

He once lived by the Nile,
where water carries history
and pyramids outlast sorrow.
He came here to join his children,
to sit near their laughter,
to grow old within the orbit of family.
But work has claimed them—
morning departures, late returns,
voices carried through doors half-closed.

And so he waits.

Lockdown sharpens the distance.
Old age, illness, migration—
these press heavier than the virus.
He accepts them quietly,