The Hidden

The Hidden In an old cigar box I have old black & white photos, nearing Christmas I sometimes take them out- one can say I give them an airing and let them see my decorated tree; mind it is artificial, but I do not think they notice. Most of the photos depict festive times summer by the sea, Easter skiing in the mountain and christmas dinner. Now as I´m older than any of them they look so young. But there is one missing…me… I was always somewhere else; in the Caribbean or on the Pacific Ocean on the way to Japan, scrap iron in hull of an old cargo ship, it makes me sweetly melancholic. Because I know behind smiles there was despair, and when booze were drunk old feuds would surface and there would be ill tempered arguments often ending in fist fight; I see my mother wears a worried smile I loved them all, put the photos back in the cigar box till next end of year… perhaps?