No Good Deed

I sit on in this chair awaiting death, punishment for crimes I have committed. It has been so many years ago that I was manhandled in to a dark, dank cell. So many things have happened sense then but, one event that happened on the day I was arrested stands out the most. I was tossed in to a cell and, landed flat on my butt. I gingerly stood and looked for a place to sit, I found a cot that was chained to the wall, and it was none to soft but, was good enough for my needs. I spent several minutes looking at the floor paying no mind to my surroundings. The day wore on and I must have counted the all the bricks in the wall. As soon as I was drifting to sleep the door to the cell opened with a loud bang. The guards walked in an old man with long white hair and a long bushy beard. He had a smile on his face, he look like a man who has never done anything wrong in his life, something of a skinny Santa Claus. The guards shut the cell door and he sat on the floor folding his legs Indian style with his eyes closed. Several minutes I sat there looking at him wondering what on earth he could have done to be thrown in prison. After several awkward moments I asked him the question running thru my head, who are you? The old man held up his head and smiled. He spoke to me in a soft and obviously elderly voice. 1

“I have done many things. I have helped the homeless, given the hunger food, given my home to thou in need of shelter. And given all I have to the needy. For these crimes I am to be put to death.”2

I looked at him dumbfounded, he had done nothing wrong, all that was listen are things that would make you a saint. I asked him sounding sheepish, to tell me what he had really done. He smiled at me and told me that he had not lied. He had not lied to me, I could tell by the tone in his voice that he had not lied. Thru this all I stared at him confused and totally baffled. Then he looked up at me with a small frown and said.3

“No good deed goes unpunished” 4