by Donald A. Ranard

Clifford, the guard, couldn’t stay awake.

Our house in Colombo, Sri Lanka—an old sprawling colonial bungalow surrounded by flowering bushes and frangipani trees—came with round-the-clock guards. Clifford was the night guard.

One night, a week after we had moved into our house, I came home to find Clifford slumped in his chair, mouth wide open, snoring. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“Clifford,” I said.

He snorted, then resumed snoring.

I lightly shook his shoulder. “Clifford, wake up.”

He woke with a start, jumped to his feet, and drew himself up to his full five foot four. “Sir!” 

I stepped back, startled. It was the first time I had seen Clifford do anything remotely guard-like.

“Clifford,” I said. “You’re the guard. You need to be awake.”

He saluted. “Quite right, sir. It won’t happen again. You have my word.”

But it did happen again. We would have let him go, but by then we’d been in Sri Lanka long enough to realize we didn’t really need a guard. The terrorists rarely attacked private residences—and never those of foreigners: The last thing they wanted was foreign involvement in the civil war. And while petty theft was not uncommon, home break-ins were rare. Clifford may have been an unlikely-looking guard—short and pudgy, he resembled the Pillsbury Doughboy—but he was a sweet, kind man, and we were told that if we fired him, he would never find another job as a guard. So, we let him stay. We were not unmindful of the irony: We were taking care of the man who had been hired to take care of us.

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One evening I came home to find Clifford sitting in his chair with tears streaming down his face.

“Clifford” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“My brother died.”

“Oh, no! What happened?”

“He had a heart attack.”

“I’m so sorry! When?”

“Ten years ago.”

I found this funny at the time, and it became a story I would tell. But now, years later, acquainted with grief’s vagaries and demands—you may think you are through with it only to discover one day, suddenly and without warning, that it is not through with you—I no longer find it funny or odd at all.

© 2025 Donald A. Ranard

Donald A. Ranard’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, New World Writing Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Vestal Review, The Washington Post, The Best Travel Writing, and elsewhere. In 2022, his play ELBOW APPLE CARPET SADDLE BUBBLE placed second in Savage Wonder’s annual playwriting contest. Before settling in Arlington, VA, he lived and worked in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.