A. J. walked for days until he came to a small village. He met a man with a jackhammer, reducing the remains of a statue to rubble. The jackhammer made a lot of noise as the man chipped away at the rock. There was no sign of a statue proper, just the last vestiges of a foundation, and some surrounding debris. The man was sweating profusely. He stopped working as A. J. approached.A. J. asked the man about the statue. He wanted to know more about it - what was it a statue of, and why was it being removed? The worker told A. J. that he really didn’t know anything about the statue's history. He had only been hired out of the union hall that morning on a short call. He said that the piece of rock he stood upon was pretty much what he found when he came to work.
The worker went on to say that the statue was probably built and toppled many years ago. He told A. J. that building and toppling statues once made for quite the past time. He chuckled, and asked A. J. what he thought about people who built statues - or those that took them down. A. J. had never thought about such things before, and had no reply.
“All of their efforts to help pad my paycheck and feed the kids,” the worker proffered. He squinted at A. J. and added, “Perhaps one of your ancestors built this statue.”
Then the worker laughed, and returned to his task. A. J. shuffled on.
- The Fool
- photo by Stanko Abadzic