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The neighbour


  Back in the days when I was a young lad, a neighbour I had quite good and glad. A neighbour he was but more of a stranger because all we did was smile whenever we met each other. And I had secretly named him Orlando for his real name did I know not.

  And one day when I was sitting on the lawns looking at the reddish sunset, a post I received telling me it was from my uncle who lived in another country. Excited as I was to receive it, I took one last view of the sun beautifully taking its night's dip into the clouds and ran to Orlando for I knew he'd read it to me. But his reply did stun me. "Neighbour, O neighbour, I cannot read it." "Why?" I asked, surprised, as I knew he was a kind man. "This thing", he said pointing to the mail, " is sealed."

  So I went home and unsealed it- a work easier said than done and went to him the first thing the next morning. I then asked him to read it with a great amount of eagerness in me, but again he said, "Neighbour, O neighbour, I cannot read it." "Why?" I asked as I stopped myself from calling him what I secretly used to. "Why, you ask? Take a look at these letters. They're so sorrowfully dull like the letters themselves convey a piece of bad news."

  So I went home and darkened the letters which meant I spent the whole night writing over them with a dark pencil although I did not understand what the letters conveyed. And the next morning, with sleep in my eyes, I walked to his house with the mail in my hand thinking that atleast now there should be nothing to hold him back from reading it as the seal was opened and the letters bright enough.

  But then again he said (and mind you- this time his voice did feel stern), "Neighbour, O neighbour! I cannot read it." Exhausted as I was with the same reply thrice, for the last time I asked him, "Why?" And to that he replied, "Why? I do not know how to read!"

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