I am

Did you think I too will
Spend my days in
search of meagre food,
Tell petty and pointless tales,
wallow in heartbroken agony,
cause by my various acts,
distress and woe to my fellows,
Turn senile with grey hair,
And fall as fodder to the
relentless march of time
As yet another faceless man?

A tip of the hat to A spark of fire for the original translation of Bharathi's poem Thedi Choru Nithanthinru which I have slightly modified

Quick tale: Prayer

This may be a totally made up story but I heard this one from a remarkably untrustworthy old man.

A group of Jewish prisoners woke up one wintry morning in a Nazi concentration camp near Auschwitz. One of them, a wizened old man with a silver moustache sang a short prayer much to the mute bewilderment of his cell mates. You see, the gas chambers were built and working and a not unfriendly German guard had whispered to them not many hours earlier that today was going to be their turn. The news was met to the most part with total and complete resignation. A few cried silently. No one slept through the night. Not even the little children. And dawn had arrived in the east. The old man sang his prayer and nobody joined him in it. A man from Kiodzko, who until then was one of the silent-weeping could bear it no more and he fumed at the hymn-singing old man. "Why do you pray now? We have been forsaken by men and God and we stare at the gates of our coming death. Why do you pray now?," he screamed.

"I was thanking God," he was told.

"What could you possibly be thankful for? Do you not get it that we are about to die a pointless death? Are you blind to the cruelty of man to his fellow men? And innocent children? There is nothing to be thankful for"

To this entirely reasonable rant, the old man replied, "I thank God because it could have been worse."

To the quizzical looks and the arching eyebrows, he said "I could be them"