We called him Charlie, but his real name was something similar in his native tongue, which still garbled his attempts to communicate in English. But this did not hide the stories that attached to him, that he was a skilled craftsman once, a member of a European Guild that made treasures for the sitting rooms of the crowned heads of Europe. But now he was past his skills, and despite a large and contributing family, daily life was something of a chore.
He had fallen right at his doorstep, spilling his blood from a gouge on the door handle all over the entranceway of the next door, and subsequent falls had elicited from his wife a complaint about caring for the “old man.”
Of course he didn’t deserve that as far as we know. But an unnoticeable higher power must be aware of all this, for that power’s son said the hairs of the old man’s head are counted, and there is a justice that goes beyond everything we know, not necessarily here and now. An almost eternal universe take its time to accomplish justice.
Civilization 