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A Coat of Arms

Susie Gharib

    He was born with a diamond spoon in his head. He thought the world of himself, so exclusiveness flourished into a leafy sort of grandeur and strong-headedness. He was the most unerring individual that ever existed. The women who did not kneel at his feet were born with a genetic bent for spinsterhood and those who did were disdainfully discarded for possessing no sense of etiquette. He remained a sexual hermit while maintaining a public stature as the grandson of a landlord whose property was confiscated in feudal and religious conflicts. The chapel that bore their coat of arms had been found guilty of fervor that exceeded the permitted limit.
    He walked every morning to an office that was not graced with a single client for decades. Nobody figured out what enterprise was his. It just bore the coat of arms that put off many customers with its expensive look. His secretary was an old, retired man who pored over a history book he borrowed from a public library down the road. The office had the hush of a church whose worshippers had given up on God. Mr. Stonecrafts spent the whole morning writing in a personal diary whose leather gave it the look of an accountant’s book. He deliberated over every sentence like a judge pondering over a matter of life and death. When the lunch hour came, he emerged from his sluggish writing like an exhausted scientist who had been endeavoring to turn ores into gold and bore a care-eaten physiognomy to the nearest park where he consumed his lunch with no apparent appetite, looking overworked. If a businessman shared his seat, he seized the opportunity to complain about the hectic pace of modern life to which the stranger instantly acquiesced offering his own account of endless tasks. He became a familiar figure to most professionals who frequented the park but no one could venture a conjecture upon the nature of his work.
    His sudden demise was as mysterious as his life. Not a single relative was to be found. The grief-stricken secretary had to use that sacred key to inspect the diary for any possible contacts. To his consternation, it was an account of the minutest details of his boss’s life. Only the pronoun they referred to those with whom he had been in contact. It started with an account of the scars that were inflicted by the inmates of a public school in which he was lodged by a very distant relative who had paid all fees in advance and disappeared from a lonely boy’s life. The bullying was mainly psychological and focused on the connotations of his coat of arms. His life at university was no better because despite academic achievements he could not make a single friend. He acquired the epithet ‘the crownless king’ and found his path strewn with giggles from whoever accidentally crossed his life.
    Drenched in tears, the diary was inserted into the coffin by the loyal secretary who paid for the funeral from his meagre pension. Fascinated by the coat of arms, he had volunteered his services after an early retirement from an insurance company and found great pride in serving that remnant of the gentry who was the quintessence of politeness. The keys of the elegant flat and office were given to a trust that claimed its right to the property after its inmate’s demise. Mr. Stonecrafts died aged fifty-five with not a single penny in his bank account. The secretary spent the remainder of his life wondering who fed his boss.

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