SOLITUDE

He was a man who lived all alone.
Alone, in a run-down shack just at the edge of Shona Dighi here at Rajshahi. It had a corrugated tin roof with numerous holes pockmarked on it. The house had only one room. A small table located at the centre for his meals and a single bed at the corner.
He used straws as a mattress
A regular sized cabinet stood beside it where he kept all his old photographs and memoirs. Just a small piece of his past locked away in a drawer. He still looked at it though. It served as a reminder of the life he had lived before and, sometimes, it even creased a smile on his lips.
Sometimes he would take a stroll around the neighbourhood to watch all its other residents. A man of his age wasn't exactly the type of person you'd see walking around. He was close to 104 and yet, he felt no fatigue in his bones. The neighbours saw him as a walking miracle. They'd always greet him with a salaam and stop for a nice chat, just to keep him company for awhile. And he'd respond in kind. A nice smile to the little one hiding behind their mother or father's back while they talked. And the kid would smile in return. Afterwards, he'd return home to have his meal and settle into bed. Every day he did this and every day the memories would haunt him.
His wife had passed away from pneumonia three years back and his own son had left him in the darkness soon after. Now, all he had were his photographs. Whenever he'd look upon happy families, their son or daughter walking right beside them, he'd always feel a sharp pain in his heart. His son was never like that. He hardly remembered going out with him after he graduated from school. Actually, he didn't even know where he was now. Someone had told him that he was a respected lawyer working in the capital, but that was it. 
He looked up at the clock sitting on top of the cabinet. It was 5.20 in the morning.
He got up to make his morning tea with a bit of ginger to soothe his aching throat. But something on the calendar had caught his eye. It was June 28, his birthday. He just shook his head and went back to his tea… until he noticed a letter on the floor, right in front of the small crack under the door. He went to retrieve it. Inside, there was a birthday card. It went as follows:

Happy Birthday, Abbu!

Sincerely,
Aaraf.

He gaped at it in shock. All these years and he sends a card now. Not even caring to check up on him, not even asking him how he is. Does he even know his father's alive…? Anger changed into gratitude. His son had remembered his birthday after all. Even if he did not know that his father barely scraped through, even if he did not, at the least, care about him, he had remembered this one tiny detail. 
He wrote him a reply soon after. I think it expresses his emotions in short.

Thank you, Baba.       

The writer is a AS Level student of SFX Greenherald International School.