He sways unsteadily where he stands like a aged bar room drunkard, but he's intoxicated by the liquor of life not fashionable fermented cereals. Outstretched limbs seek physical balance to match the spiritual serenity that he found many, many years ago. A tightrope walker over the precipice far too large and heavy to stand as proud and erect as he once did. Dandruff falls and drifts about his feet where his skinny heirs gather paying homage to his longevity, while he stoops protectively over them casting a dangerous, darkening shadow. His very presence has now become a thinly veiled threat of destruction. Already he has disturbed the foundations of our meagre, tidy little lives. Euthanasia, everybody tells me, is the only way. Fell this grand old man with unconscionable modern machinery and put him out of our misery, and when he's dead and gone the kids can count the rings for fun. |