The Ironing man

Below my apartment, few meters away down the street, there is a shop, shop of ironing cloths. The man running the iron is old, quite old. The shop is wooden, rests on four meek pillars. The man has a radio, must be bought years ago, as he hadn’t been upgraded, as it has an antenna and the noise is blur. The man is quite thin, generous and kind spoken with a heavy voice, wore a glass, put moustache, wraps a plaid over his head. From 10 in morn till 8 in eve his shop remains open, every day. Every day, even in holiday, he must be addicted to his small wooden shop and listening to radio the whole day, I think, severely addicted. He has a good friend, a dog, who at any normal day sits nearby the shop, they both seems to like each other.

Whole life, whole life of the iron man has spent working in that shop, that wooden shop, that old wooden shop. God do reside in that shop, I had seen the pictures. Oh my curiosity, I want to be the iron man once, for once I want to live his life. For once I desire to interfere in his thought process and understand the reason why he remained stuck in his small shop under the shadow of the tree, below the apartment, down the street.

Thinking of the life of the iron man raises many a big questions in my little curious mind. That he has been ironing the cloths of many a people against few bucks a cloth. Well, those few bucks had been just enough to keep the thin and rusty looking iron man remains alive, alive. For, he silently remained in our life and helped us like a machine with some minimum requirement. His shop stands in such a small land, the music and news that keeps playing in his old radio is just able to penetrate the man’s ear & he takes just few bucks per cloth. I wonder what his life is. Has he is sent on earth to iron cloths and be trapped in his little shop? Well, there is a world beyond that; there is a world beyond that and every damn person in earth hold the right to explore it. Instead, he worked & kept working from 10 in morn till 8 in eve in his small shop, ironing our cloths… Every time, I come back from office or from a holiday or from a tour, he remains there in his shop, no difference. Sometimes I see him sitting over the stone besides the shop quietly with a blank face. He seems partially exhausted, partially. 

For once, for once I want to be the iron man.