Unseen. Mark Graham

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      Mariupol, Ukraine

      The grounds-keeper caught the director watching him from behind the tall white linen curtains of her office window. He had seen her do this for many years and drive by him on his daily long walk to the bus-stop. He sensed her still observing him as he ambled to the newly installed nine foot high steel front gate at the entrance to the orphanage. He let himself out first, double-wrapped the chains, and relocked it. He stood there for a while looking at what had been his place of work for the past thirty-two years, the old large three-story building of imperfectly placed sandy bricks. Located central to one of the many Soviet era apartment sections of town, the orphanage was surrounded and blocked from all sides. The whole of the property, his kingdom, surrounded by a low endless and expansive wall of the same brick. He had given his best to it, inside and out, to make it appear less like an industrial warehouse. But at each day’s end, the view of it and his efforts disappointed.

      His last day. He was still trying to believe it. It would be months before he started receiving his pension and he had made no other plans for the gap. He never even considered his pension, only assumed he would work until his body gave out completely.

      Directors came and went over the years, one or two that were good and the rest bad. This latest one being the worst. Many children came to know him well and he always focused on the ones, the few, who could potentially find work when they left. But he was a learner. A man who read and thought. He learned to only invest himself in certain ones eventually and worked to build them up, making them assistants and getting them duty with him in the gardens or strapping on them a tool-belt to follow him around with, cleaning and fixing. Hoping they would grasp something lasting from his ethic and take on some confidence. It had become to him his real job.

      He turned from the building. He had eleven blocks to walk to the bus stop. His longevity was in part due to this exercise blended with the breeze coming from the nearby Sea of Azov. At the corner of the fourth block he would normally stop into the store, buy a paper and meet his friends. His friends used to include the customers but that had changed over the years.

      He passed the storefront by this evening.

      As he walked, he thought of the empty flat that awaited him at the other side of town. His wife had died long ago and too young. He was without children; they had wanted children so badly. When no one was around he would still speak to her about all their children that he tended to. About his love and dreams for them. Each year he looked to celebrate a day when he helped one of his children get a job. Or when he found one had gone off to University on a government scholarship. He bought the little store out on those days. There were six such celebrations in his years at the orphanage. The past five years had been hopeless because of the new director. He managed his work around the other bad ones, but this one was different, maniacal and unpredictable. Also she was in total control while pretending to be at odds politically with some workers and administrators. It took him several years before he understood her act, her lies. And another couple of years to keep himself from the bottle when he returned home.

      Part of him was relieved that he witnessed what he had on the second floor, while the part of him, concerned with paying his rent now, wished he had not stayed to listen and been found out. The work was so hopeless anyhow. And the director’s future would probably outlast the remainder of his life. But he had seen them and heard them. He had some skills and sober many years so he did imagine he might still find work, even at his age.

      The grounds-keeper reached his stop and was surprised to see her alone there sitting under the canopy. He had been so much in his thoughts that he had not noticed her shiny new car parked in front of the bus-stop. He was certain she had not passed him on the walk, he always noticed that. And her new car was the latest talk of her around the orphanage. He approached her cautiously and sat down at the opposite end of the bench without acknowledging her.

      “You know I had to fire you,” the director said.

      He did not answer.

      “Those girls have a roof and some money. That’s more than they would have on the street and you know it. And they don’t pay for anything.”

      The grounds-keeper СКАЧАТЬ