No one could explain to him what was the secret with those stripes.
He simply admired the bright equal stripes.
He spent the nights counting them; but then he spent the mornings trying to remember the number.
He was always trying to comprehend the stripes.
He would reach them; grab them; count them thoroughly; but then suddenly they would slip through his fingers:
They would become so wild.
They would start dancing in circles around him; he had to stay always in the middle.
He woke up one morning and realized that he now saw the sun decorated with stripes; even the faces of those around him were all painted with bright red stripes.
That morning he realized how the stripes had become like prison bars.
How they encircled him and turned into solid, steel bars
He now looked at life only through the bars.
But life may never notices him for it rarely sees those who live and die behind bars.
