When the stone melts...

He’s dealt
with the worst in men,
desperate, hungry, lawless thugs.
He’s witnessed
the worst of the world,
gangrapes, mass murders, forced conversions.
His best friend died in his arms
in the battlefield,
he lost his son
to the madness of brainwashing sermons,
his brother resigned to the deepest darkness of the cellar
and is terrified to see the light of day.
 
Nothing moves him anymore.
The cruelty of life
hardened him,
his sanctum – petrified.
 
Late one autumn evening,
when the air was loaded
with the unbearable lightness
of pellucid wings and wayward spirits,
he knelt by a lantern
and recited short stories
to his seven-year-old granddaughter
from the yellowing pages of a secondhand book.
When he finished narrating the tale
of the reunion of a mama bear with her two cubs,
the little girl pulled his shirt
and hugged him tightly.
He abruptly dropped the book to the floor
and did something
he hadn’t done in the last six decades.
He hugged her back
and cried uncontrollably
into the strange silence
of the unrushed hour.