The Old Man and his dog

Amsterdam,

Still half asleep and putting the kettle on the fire to boil water for coffee, a peek out of my window down to the street below, for a moment I hestitate than I see what I have bewen expected to see since late last year...

When I moved into this house in the summer of 1995 one of the first neighbors I got to meet was the old man across the road, skinny frame and a parchment yellowish skin color looking sickly and spending most of his time behind the proverbial geranium flowers scanning the going-ons in the street from his small first floor appartment that he shared with his aling wife who hardly ever could be seen outside the house.

Both of them old and suffering from a broad spectre of old people`s ailments waiting for the bony hands old Lady Death to stretch her all-encompassing embrace upon them.

The old man`s one and only friend - apart from his wife of course - was his little mongrel, fat from too much inactivity but in the possession of thin dog`s legs who would never get further away than the corner of the street during its many walks with his master, the old man across the road.

Apart from frequent shorttime excursions out of the house this fatty to the max dog would spent the other part of his canine life sitting on the old man`s legs looking out at the world below....

Late last summer bad luck befell the old man breaking his hip and being send to a care centre for the old, his wife being carried down and placed inside a coffin a few weeks later. The old man couldn`t even get to the funeral because of his broken hip.....

....This morning the old man`s appartment was empty, no more furniture inside or whitherred away plants on his balcony, curtains taken down and the appartment stripped of all his personal belongings....later during the day another neighbor told me he died recently in his care centre while he was asleep.