It was supposed to have been a great year.
More teaching, more dancing, more toasting,
more sunsets, more excursions on the sea –
he had been planning for it all. But then
things took a bad turn and the plan fell apart
and he had to scramble and improvise another
plan, one that had to be even better than Year 34,
since Year 34 wasn’t in the cards. So that’s what he did.
But it’s not like he was waiting for that day since
he was born – that would be a little sick. And it’s
not like that day had to happen, either; it happened because
certain people had certain weaknesses, as well as certain authority,
and they tapped into the fear and shame and dark
thirst for power within the human heart. And the thing is,
he could have run away from it all, but he was, in essence, a teacher,
and at the last moment he found a better way to teach, one
in which he sadly needed to give up that starry sky,
that dawning sun, that bread at tomorrow’s breakfast.

© Meisaan Chan