Short Story “They said silence is golden”, they were right! [Archives:2002/35/Culture]

ABDOURHAMAN ROBLEH
Ahmad was sipping his cup of tea at a cafeteria. It is the first time for him to come to that place. He sat at a corner and seemed tired. The problems of life were apparently realized from his face. He did not want to face up the realities of life that he lived.
He realized life as a piece of hell. He gazed at his cup of tea, giving no attention to anything else. He was a middle-aged man. He was getting bald and his beard grew densely as it was neglected. He was silent but suddenly cried out “Al-Qaeda”. The people around him stopped talking and were drowned in surprise. The word he said seemed to have a great dangerous meaning to them. That was the reason they started whispering to each other as if he had committed a crime. The difficulties of life that he had faced made him forget what was going on around him.
Later on he realized that he was in a public place. He could hear some of them saying that he might have been one of the Al Qaeda members.
The other day when he came to the cafeteria, he was astounded with the out numbering police waiting at the cafeteria. It did not come to his mind that he was wanted until the police asked him to follow them to prison. He spoke some broken words surprisingly. He requested the police to let him go or tell him what the problem was.
As he was following the police, he said surrendering himself “A slice of bread can save you from death; a beautiful word may lead you to marry a beautiful girl. Sometimes you may not get a drop of water to let the bite down or an answer to the puzzle of life but you should know that this is the way life goes.”
“Only now do I realize that my grandfather was right.” he added.

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