McDeath Jones

Growing up sometimes means giving up imagination. It usually goes by the name realisation.

Every morning, through my window, I peered,

to see a man standing, far away in the field.

“McDeath Jones” everyone called him,

so I knew his name.

Under the hot sun or pouring rain,

he stood all alone, all the time.

He neither cared for the Summer nor the Winter.

One day, to meet him, I went closer.

I said, “How are you, McDeath Jones?”

He rudely ignored me.

He never spoke a word.

He never shook his head.

Twenty years later, I now go home

to meet old McDeath Jones

I have grown older and wiser and 

Jones too has certainly changed.

I said, “How are you, McDeath Jones?”

I smiled, while he kept his silence.

After all, now I know

McDeath Jones is a scarecrow.

A child knew a man named McDeath Jones. He grew of particular interest to the child due to his typical behaviour. McDeath Jones was alone all the time. Despite being wet in the rain or under the hot sun, he stood like it didn’t matter to him. Eventually, when the child meets him, he was hurt by the ignorance of McDeath Jones.

As a grown up, he returns with live memories of McDeath Jones, mixed with strong emotions from when he was young. He certainly understands his reality much better. He talks to McDeath Jones again, but this time he knows of McDeath Jones’ true nature - a scarecrow who would never reply.

Our lives are also not very different from the boy’s life. We may desire several things; we may strive for higher goals everyday. Our failures and the unexpected outcomes and responses dishearten us. Gradually, as we grow “older and wiser”, we tend to realise that neither man nor nature has truly cheated us. It is possible that we may have fancied things that weren’t truly wonderful. We may have expected things that were beyond well-defined limits. However, in the end, we figure out the weight of all the events in our lives. What really did matter and what didn’t?