The Tax Avoider

The Tax Payer


The old lady, so small she almost disappears in the tall spring
grass, is 104 today. Quick on her feet this early morning she’s
letting the goats out of the barn, in her youth wolves roamed,
now there are people in vans trying to steal a goat or two.
Never married, looked after her parents who lived long, and
the few suitable men around here where of the lazy drinking
types, so there are no children to send her flowers and wish her
well, the goats don’t care as long as she’s there to let them in
at night. Her face has the colour of the brown rich soil around
here, where potatoes grow big and are suitable for baking; her
blue eyes are hazy by age and hold eternities peace; she never
asked for anything and now she has got it all. At a tax office in
The town an inspector looks up from his screen and says: “There
Is a lady in the valley, she 104 today and has never paid any tax.”