DUMMIES

     It is cold and gloomy outside. From where I sit I can see a patch of grass in the garden, the concrete of a patio right outside the glass door to the backyard, a ladder and a part of our fence. The old black man stands by the wall of the house, wearing only a red t-shirt and a decrepit straw hat. Every time I catch a glimpse if him out of the corner of my eye, I get a shock. Wouldn't you? Fortunately, it is just a boxing dummy! 
     Taka talked me into buying it about ten years ago. It came with boxing gloves. We had to purchase a big sack of sand to anchor it in place. Before we bought a house, it stood in the corner of our apartment's living room and I got startled by it then too. 
     The dummy was not such a dummy then! When one hit it in a right place with sufficient force, one or another of the lights on it's black frame lit up. Taka's reason for buying it was to get rid of the pent up bad feelings. He played with it exactly five times since then. The boxing gloves disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle that was our apartment. Eventually, kids dressed the dummy in their cast off clothes and put an old Mexican hat on it.
     The first time anyone came to our home, they had a shock of their life suddenly noticing a tall silent black figure in the corner of the room. I lost one or two cleaning ladies that way. Maybe then the dummy was still satisfied that it had some impact on the world around it! Now it just stands on the  patio, it's hat quietly falling apart and now covering dummy's whole head. I saw a stray cat catch a sight of it and jump in the air once, but otherwise - it's just a vestige of an old idea that never panned out.