A Lucky World by Sadesh Rajapakse

He looks out of his skyscraper window,

‘The young business prodigy’

Earning more than he can count. 

He looks back. 

A young man, one of his best,

shamed

for his skin. 

‘The African’, they call him as they crack a laugh. 

His face shows sorrow. Regret. Shame. 

Begs the question;

His aspirations of success as a struggling child,

all for this?

The mogul wonders,

as he makes his way down to his chauffeured town car,

“How lucky I am”. 

Holding his tears back,

in the name of pride,

The executive finishes a day of work.

He has no shame for his motherland. 

As he walks out, he sees,

an old lady

crying on the floor. 

The janitor, she’s shunned

for being a woman in a man’s job. 

Paid less than she deserves, but that’s the least of her concerns. 

She gets up, wipes her tears off,

and carries on with her job. 

The executive wonders,

as he walks to his loaned out hatchback,

“How lucky I am”. 

She’s worn out. 

Her back hurts. 

Yet, she grins at the end of her day. 

As she steps out,

a beggar. Holding his hand out. 

For money. Food. Clothes. 

Anything at all. 

His eyes sunk in, his hand trembling. 

Three kids to feed, and barely able to move. 

“Get a job”, they say,

Blind to his existing suffering. 

He starves, so his kids won’t. 

A tear rolls down his eye, triggering the same in hers. 

The janitor wonders, 

as she stands alone for the bus,

“How lucky I am”. 

Tired and famished, 

He carries himself elsewhere. 

On the way, he finds a newspaper.

He can’t read, but he looks at the pictures. 

On the front page, war in the East. 

A young boy, hand in hand with her sister,

amidst the wreckage. 

The wreckage of meaningless conflict.

The wreckage of ideologies their budding minds cannot comprehend. 

They fear every man. They fear every place. 

They fear being forced to take arms,

to contribute to the wreckage,

the wreckage they don’t even understand. 

They fear to cry. 

The beggar wonders,

as he limps ‘home’,

“How lucky I am”. 

Sister in hand, he walks. 

He’s hungry. He’s thirsty. He’s dying. 

He doesn’t care. 

An explosion in the vicinity. 

He runs for cover, sister still in hand. 

As the rubble clears, he hears the screams. 

He inches closer. He sees it. 

A bloodbath, too gruesome to word. 

Hundreds lost, mercilessly. Carelessly. 

Ironic, isn’t it?

The true monsters survive against each other,

at the expense of innocent souls. 

Souls much like him,

oblivious to the grander scheme of rubbish political motive. 

The wails of the survivors penetrate deep in,

Defeating sanity. 

If only tears could bring back life. 

The sibling wonders,

as they stand, almost unconscious,

“How lucky I am”.