Everything had since gone rotten, until he got this new camera lens.
He had waited patiently both to pick out and receive the new seeing device. It was from an old German arial war camera, and the lens had its own story of seeing things. He wanted to add a chapter or two to its already long and precise journey of seeing.
When it finally arrived after three months, as if arriving from the German front somewhere long ago, he kept it in the box and wrappings for weeks, until just the right moment, when he could be present with the wonder of this new lens.
He wanted to learn what it could see, that he couldn’t yet.
Everything in him couldn’t wait to see through it! A whole new way of perception was waiting there in that box. Perhaps, he would understand history better, and even see things around him in a way he had never imagined. He kept the box by his bed, until just the right morning.
Then his dog died in that night, and he forgot about the special lens, until just today.