Vindicated..

He walked slowly to the bus stop, treading carefully over the inches of snow that had accumulated all around him.Damn winter. "This Winter had been a grouchy old man with no sense of humour. He had just dumped 10 inches of snow on my driveway that I had worked so hard to clean yesterday." He thought angrily.He looked back at the empty house and stifled the loneliness that was creeping into his heart.


Heart..His wounded,sutured, weak heart. He often wondered that it still pumped blood after all that it had gone through.

He covered his face with his gloved hand to protect himself from the cold wind that was blowing as he waited for the bus to show up.He thought his plans over. First of all, he needed a drink and some Italian food. Yesterday's bus driver had told him of a nice Italian family restaurant in this route that he wanted to try.

"I need to get down at the Italian restaurant near Normandale Lake .". He told the driver who was a nice lady who agreed to help him find the right place to get down. Normally, he would have made an effort at pleasant conversation , but lately, he always felt weak. Increasingly conversations had become time- fillers with little purpose and even less meaning.He even ignored the amused smiles of co-passengers as he misheard Computer Ave as Suture ave .His hearing hadn't been the same after the surgery. Who was he kidding, nothing was the same anymore. His thoughts re winded themselves into the past and he dozed off exhausted.

It was already dark when he got out of the bus. It was only a short walk. But out of sheer habit, he checked his pocket for his gun.It was there and he felt safe.He had promised himself that he would never be caught unawares. Never again.

He walked into the restaurant and was struck by a wave of nostalgia.It was a small family run place with lots of food and drinks and fun.There weren't any customers yet and the place looked empty.

As he slowly sipped his drink, the sadness and loneliness that he had been trying to bury resurfaced , like it always did, after a few drinks.But now,it seemed more bearable like the bitter sweet taste of tears unlike the blinding pain that would often come to him when he was sober.He could accept that he was all alone in this world.That he did not belong here any more. That he had no purpose on this earth. Nobody waited for him. If he died just now, nobody would miss him. But may be somebody would be waiting for him up there.. He looked out of the glass window into the star studded skies that seemed to be calling out to him.

He was startled into reality by a harsh voice and the screams of people. There was a man with a gun . "It is a hold up.Give me all you have or I'll shoot you". The guy with the gun was holding it straight to the cashier's forehead". The lady behind the counter was screaming and the restaurant owner was pleading "Please don't shoot my son . I'll do anything you say.Please..."

Suddenly a shot ran out. The gun-man had fallen down in a pool of blood. Some one called 911.There was a crowd near the counter now.

He slowly put the gun back into his pocket and walked out of the door oblivious of the family that was thanking him, oblivious of the blaring police sirens and ambulance and oblivious to the people watching . For the first time in ten years he felt at peace. Vindicated.

If only there was someone to do what he did tonight on that fateful day when three of them walked into his restaurant, killed his family and left him for dead.He looked at the sky and felt that the stars were shining down on him.

N.B :Dedicated to the old man I saw in the bus , whose story it partly is.