There used to be an old man who walked around my neighborhood by himself. He never ever spoke a word but would gaze at you with absorbent eyes. Upon first seeing this man I thought of him as just another peculiar entity who wandered the streets all by his lonesome. The craziness was confirmed when he started trying to give all the neighborhood kids cookies that he kept in his pockets. They were the imitation Oreo type of cookies, the ones you can buy at the dollar store.

I reminisce my first encounter with him. Walking down the street I passed by him. He reached into his pocket, I wasn't too apprehensive; as I figured he was looking for his inhaler or some other type of medical device. He pulled out a cookie and tried to hand it to me. His hands pallid white with those brownish liver spots and green veins you can see from a mile away. I told him no thank you and he shook his hand with the cookie in his palm vigorously, trying to pressure the cookie upon me, his eyes bulged out a little more, as if he was offended that I did not want his little delight. I paid no heed to it; and walked on by without retrieving the cookie from the old man's prune-like hands. Now that I think back upon it, I'm sure those cookies were laced with some type of drug.

All the other neighborhood kids I have talked to have undergone the same occurrence with the old man. Some thought of his as eerie; others thought of him as a pedophile, and some just thought of him as lonely. From time to time I would see the other kids ridicule him when he would try to force his tasty little treats upon them. Telling him to get away from them before they told their parents or called the cops; shouting out that he's creepy. Through it all he never spoke a word, or opened his mouth. I think he may have been a mute, but I'm not sure now, all I know is he always left with a smile on his face, even as the kids called him the child molester; his unwanted cookie filled with lint from his pocket still in his palm.

Then, one night while I was walking back home I heard the sirens yielding towards my direction. The piercing wailing of the ambulance inching closer and closer as my ear drums began to ring. It stopped outside of the old man's house as I walked on by. Meddlesome neighbors hurried out of their houses to see what the commotion was about. I just kept walking straight home. The next day I learned that the old man had died, and his reign as the cookie bearer was over. His legacy soon faded, and no one ever talks about him now except for the occasional times we meet other crazy old men. The children are no longer plagued with his peculiar presence; the parents no longer have to deal with talking to their children about taking anything from him. Most of them treat it like a burden that had been lifted.

But perhaps his providing of cookies was just his bizarre way of trying to tell you something. Maybe a plea for help; perhaps a cry for some type of meaningful relationship with someone; anyone. Or perhaps he really was just crazy. I don't think I'll ever really know for sure.

The day I found out he had died, I asked how.

They tell me his wife bludgeoned him to death; the cookie crumbs falling out of his pocket when the paramedics carried his dead carcass away.