Commitment

"I made a promise." the old man said flatly.

I looked him over. He was dressed in cheap old clothes, the shirt too big and the pants too short. He struck me as a flaky old geezer, more prone to lying for a buck than to keeping decades old promises. He might have kept that shirt for that long though. The beard must have been older.

He pulled a small bundle from his coat pocket, and carefully unwrapped the object within. It could have been anything, but somehow I suddenly knew what it was. My grandmother's box.

I never knew what was in it, no one did I think. It made a chinking sound, and was very heavy for it's small size, most people assumed the mundane explanation of gold, or even silver. Perhaps it was because I was young at the time, but I always felt it was something more. My grandmother kept it on the highest shelf, and I once caught her looking into it when I came quietly into the room. She snapped it shut, and all I saw was a glimmer of light. I wasn't able to make it too her funeral; too many miles and too few dollars. They said they never found her will, though I never quite believed that she would be so careless as to not write one. Apparently she had other plans.

The old man looked at the box with love, no, perhaps honor in his old, red eyes. I felt that this was his last scrap of integrity, the last wall within which his conscience still reigned. Now that his task was completed he could look back and know, that of all the mistakes of his long life, and the cold, the hunger of a seemingly useless man, he had done one thing and done it well.

I didn't know what to say to him. It seemed a shame to give him five bucks and never see him again.

"Would you like to see inside it?"

The old an raised a bushy eyebrow. "No, I don't think so. After all these years, there's no way it can live up to my expectations, I suppose."

He raised one wrinkled hand in an arthritic salute, and shuffled down the street.

But now, looking back, I think he may have opened that box. For only one who knew what was inside it would never want to see it again. His burden was heavy, but mine is the heavier.