Old Man: A Parable

There once was an old man who lived at the edge of town. His clothes were patched and re-patched yet still sported numerous holes. They didn’t match, the old man’s clothes, sometimes pink shirts teamed with purple sweat pants, or striped dress pants and polka dotted t-shirts. But they were always immaculately clean. Daily the old man hefted an arm load of clothes to the laundry mat for washing and drying. Daily the old man returned with a neatly-folded bundle. People wondered where he got the money to use the machines–the price had soared to a buck a wash, two bucks for a dry. Not to mention soap and softners. Stole it, no doubt.

The old man’s house was a caricature of himself, an old ramble shack which stood on the other side of the tracks. The paint had long ago deserted the walls leaving a dingy grey, sad looking house in its wake. No two windows were dressed alike. Some were covered with shades which had gaping holes. Others were dressed with blinds with missing slates, no string. Still other windows sported patched drapes which resembled grandma’s patch work quilts. The assortment of colours gave the impression of a rainbow after a summer shower.

Even the cedar shingles resembled the old man. The two ends of the roof had a good covering of shingles while right down the centre of the roof the shingle cover was sparse to nonexistent. A big storm two summers past tore the strip of shingles from the house. The old man never bothered to replace them. Rain leaked freely through the roof, forming puddles on the ceiling which drip, dripped into buckets scattered in an obstacle course pattern around the room.

What was really strange was the claim that the old man was a computer expert. Nary a computer occupied his house. His gnarled fingers resembled old oak branches, which did not give the impression of dexterity on the keys. Yet anyone who bothered to engage the old man in conversation heard about his mastery of the computer medium.

For the most part, however, the old man was generally ignored by the townspeople. Mothers would unconsciously reach for the hands of their children if they happened upon the old man on the sidewalk. Old women would stop to gaze into a store window until the old man passed, carefully guarding against eye contact. Men would cross the street, searching frantically through their pockets for the shopping list that they were sure their wives had given them this morning, but which they never did find.

The old man was generally ignored until THE DAY. It was a Tuesday, middle of July. The weather was oppressively hot and humid. Air conditioners hummed in every window, storekeepers encouraged their customers to hurry through the doors so as not to lose the precious few wisps of cool air which their conditioners had generated. Mothers kept their children quiet in the basement, where the residual cool of the night had burrowed. Old women fanned themselves with white handkerchiefs or any piece of paper they could scavenge from the depths of their purses. Men perspired freely, dark circles forming under each arm, the brims of their baseball caps, permanent fixtures on their heads, were soaked through.

THE DAY. For no accountable reason all the computers in town stopped. Dead. Unresponsive. The banks couldn’t access the vaults. The stores couldn’t operate their cash registers. The service station pumps refused to refuel thirsty cars. And what was worse, the newfangled air conditioners, which it was thought would save the town and its citizens thousands of dollars a year in electrical bills, all ground to steamy halt.

The computer man from the government office couldn’t explain the stoppage. The town crew was unable to locate the source of the problem. Even the high school computer teacher, a self-proclaimed whiz kid, was perplexed.

What were they to do? A call to the city computer stores went unanswered–they preferred to do their business via email. It was a desperate situation.

A special town meeting was called. The mayor yelled, “I declare a state of emergency.”

The insurance broker claimed, “This is an act of God.”

The town clergywoman said, “Let us fall to our knees in prayer.”

The chair of the Chamber of Commerce said, “We must call in the national guard.”

The lawyer offered, “I will bring suit against the computer company.”

The doctor said, “We could all become sick and die.”

A little girl quietly suggested, “Let’s talk to the old man at the edge of town. He is a computer expert.”

“Ha!” roared the mob. “He is responsible. He has sabotaged our computers. He wants to annihilate us and take over our town. He must die!”

As one the crowd surged through the door and roiled up to the old man’s door.

“Come out, you saboteur,” the Chief of Police demanded. “Come out with your hands up.” The crowd thundered its approval, stamping its feet like an angry bull, snorting and roaring its murderous intent.

The door of the house creaked as it opened, as if in expectation of the worst. The old man cautiously stepped out.

“Away with him,” the crowd seethed. “Hang him. He must die.”

The Chief of Police ordered his deputies to fasten a noose around the old man’s neck and lead him to the hanging tree. While the old man struggled to keep up with the pulsating heartbeat of hate to which the crowd marched, the Chief of Police read him his rights.

At last they reached the gallows. The old man was dragged up the stairs and pushed into position over the trap door. The clergywoman began to recite, “Our Father, who art in heaven...” and the multitude of the righteous joined in reverent prayer.

When “Amen” had been intoned, the lawyer stepped to the fore. “Why have you destroyed our computers? We have graciously allowed you to live in our midst, to enjoy the niceties of our fine community. Why oh why?”

“I think you will find, gentlemen,” the old man began, “that the problem lies with the power supply to the main computer. Is it possible that someone has pulled the plug or switched the switch? I would begin my check there.”

“Away with the deceiver. He takes us to be fools. He must die,” was the immediate deadly response of the crowd.

And no sooner had the words ejaculated from their mouths that the Executioner pulled the lever to the gallows door, and the old man jerked to his violent and horrible end.

“Amen!” shouted the crowd with religious delight. “We have rid the devil from our midst.”

At that instant, the familiar hum of the air conditioners resonated on their eardrums, cash registers clinked open their drawers, and the bank vault door swung open like an old gate in the breeze. The people looked at one another in amazement. “We were right,” they congratulated themselves. “Now that the old man is dead, things have returned to normal.”

But from way back of the crowd a little voice rang clear. “A painter accidently pulled the plug on the main computer at City Hall. The old man was right.”

The crowd was momentarily dazed. Had they hung an innocent man? But instantly a rumor sprang to life, a ripple at first, but quickly swelling to an ocean tide. “The old man caused the painter to do it. And be careful of the girl: she is his disciple.”

And with that, the sated townspeople returned to their homes, happy and content.