Sisyphus

He was an old man, so no one understood his muscles. In the grocery store where he worked as a bagger, he helped elderly ladies carry sacks of food to their cars, hefting five on each arm. Everyone stared, but the old man couldn't pick up an egg without an intense and concentrated effort to be gentle, otherwise he crushed the shells. He'd spent too long rolling that damned stone up the hill. The old man could only work hard and fast, that's what he'd done for centuries, so when he opened his apartment door the first time he put the knob through the opposite wall and left a nasty hole. He had to pretend the world was made of glass threads.

Every day the old man went to the senior center to take watercolor painting classes and buy a cheap cafeteria lunch. He worked two jobs, as a bag boy and gas station cashier. Everyone at the senior center sympathized. They were on limited budgets, and lunchtime conversation consisted of how much they were spending on food, rent, and medications. Prices were always going up.

Because she'd been an elementary school secretary and was therefore a compassionate person, Helen, one of his friends from the senior center, offered to take the old man out for dinner.

"My treat," she said.

The old man shook his head. "You're too kind," he said, but Helen was waiting to pick him up at his apartment when he arrived home the next evening. She was as determined as he was strong, and she'd been lonely since her husband died. Helen liked the idea of dating a man who enjoyed watercolor painting and could lift a hundred pounds with one hand.

As they ate cheeseburgers and fries and drank chocolate milkshakes, she told him about spending thirty-five years as a secretary. He told her about spending several decades as a Greek king, which surprised Helen since at first glance he didn't seem the kingly sort. When she squinted, however, she could tell that behind his wrinkles he'd once been a very attractive man.

"But not a very good king," he said. "I bet you were a much better secretary."

"Not all all," said Helen who believed in thinking the best of everyone. "I'm sure you were a wonderful king. You're so helpful cleaning up after our painting class."

She wasn't prepared for him to take another sip of milkshake and unroll a teary story about ordering his soldiers to kill people who he thought might question his right to be in power.

Helen bit her lip. "But you know that was wrong now, don't you, honey?"

The old man nodded, sniffled, and resumed drinking his milkshake.

Helen had never met royalty before, but she took it in stride because she figured those kinds of people were like everyone else, they'd just been born in the right place at the right time to the right people. She'd been born into a life that led her to be a school secretary, which meant three and a half decades of juggling phone calls, lunches left at home, copy machine repairs, and sending some "sick" kids to the school nurse and some back to class though they protested that they were feeling "icky." A hectic but fulfilling career. If someone had given her a chance to rewrite sections of her life, Helen only would have taken up watercolor painting a bit sooner.

At the senior center, the old man yawned when he stayed late after the watercolor painting class.

"You look exhausted," Helen said, touching his shoulder.

"I'm fine," said the old man, straightening his posture, but the two jobs wore on him so he was grateful when Helen dragged him out to dinner again. She wanted more of his story, and asked how he'd fallen from kingship. The old man was grudging but obliged because she'd paid for his cheeseburger and seemed genuinely concerned. No living person knew the full tale, and he admitted that confessional therapy was a bit of a...