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Roxanne Noor

Old Man Pat

He lives in his off white finca in Southern Ibiza. When he comes home at night he drinks three glasses of pinot blanc and plays reggae fusion disco. He drags from the stub of his cigarette and watches the ocean, not really watching. His mind drifts, far from the nation of water below his balcony.

In the kitchen there is the clatter of plates, the stirring of spaghetti al dente. A young couple laughs inside the soft glow of the kitchen. Their laughter contaminates all surroundings, spreads to every wall, lathers the utensils with a soprano tonality.


The young couple seems to be laughing at him, at all he has lost. They are a portrait of his past, scrubbed, shiny and youthful. It was once easy to be happy, like summer being warm, it was a given.


Most of his life was handed into his rubbery open palms. His $20M inheritance, his tame wife, his beachfront property; everything was passed down generationally, tidy and pre-decided. All was given, but as life reads its biography of tragedy, the plot tells that nothing can be kept for anyone. He made a job of losing.


The young couple laughs again, and the old man grits his yellowed teeth. How he hates to have them at his finca, but how he resents the poverty of loneliness, the solitary confinement. He stands at the edge of his balcony and listens to a laughter he cannot partake in.



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