something that is to be eliminated at whatever the cost. Compassion fatigue? Charity fatigue? Call it what you like. I am, in fact, not alone in that. It was just that I expressed it - very frankly, very bluntly. But, you see, whereas I call it hardship, they call it suffering. And, despite suggestions to the contrary, I do not like to see people suffering. But sometimes there is nothing that can be done to stop that suffering. It is just like your dilemma over the dying deer."
"Yes, that is it. Exactly."
Both men were still sitting on the wet ground. For a while there was silence as they both looked in opposite directions but seeing nothing. Then:
"So, as we have just mentioned dying," the older man finally said, "Are we slowly edging towards another reason for your visit? Are you perhaps in another private dilemma over what to say about the main reason I am in prison. Do you, perhaps, harbour an unpleasant feeling that I, your grandfather, am a criminal, a murderer - a person totally unable to show any compassion whatsoever?"
The older man was still looking in the opposite direction when his grandson turned his head.
"I.....I am not sure, grandfather," he said hesitantly.
The old man was still looking away.
"Sad to say, it is quite clear to me that you have completely failed to inherit any of my ability to make a firm decision."
He raised his head to look at the darkening sky.
"Let me help you. Assuming we are now talking about the same thing, do you think that what I did that caused such outrage increased someone's suffering? Or did I step in to stop them suffering?"
His grandson first looked away and then looked back again. Tears were forming in his eyes. He put his hand on the bare, white arm of his grandfather, but it was his grandfather who spoke again. He took a deep breath and turned.
"Let me try to approach this sensitive matter then." He paused. "You are quite clearly referring to my mother, your great grandmother. Yes?"
"Yes, grandfather."
"Well, let me try to explain. Your great grandmother, my mother, was eighty nine years old. She was old. She had led a highly active, productive and fulfilled life as a doctor, a cardiologist. She missed my dead father, your great grandfather, desperately. She had become sad and lonely and she knew she was losing her memory. She knew she had contributed as much as she could during her active life. At eighty nine, she could now do little more than just sit. She had lost most of her sight. She could just hear the birds singing and smell the flowers, but she could not see them. Reading was something she loved to do but she could no longer read. She and I talked for many years about the problems of old age, about population statistics, world demographics and about the recent, worldwide practice of abandoning old people who have already contributed to society to either fend for themselves or, worse, to live together in conditions that, as younger people, they would have found totally abhorrent."
He paused and took a deep breath.
"She was, like me, an expert on the subject. When she was eighty eight, she told me, quite clearly, that she had had enough. She told me that it was time to face the inevitable. She wanted her death to come when she was fully aware. She did not want to drag it out until she was beyond the point of comprehension and had become what she described as a useless burden. And she began to use your word. She told me she had no wish to suffer. When she felt the time had come, we discussed it one last time. We sat together, mother and son. She was in bed with her head on the pillow and smiled at me as I held her hand and administered the injection, the injection she herself had put aside for twenty five years in readiness. Her last words to me were, 'Thank you'."
His grandson's eyes were now overflowing with tears.
"But was it the right thing to do, grandfather?" He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Yes, of course. She could still look back and remember a lifetime of contribution. She had, as she used to say, 'paid her way' but that 'enough was enough'. She had contributed but had never been a burden on others. She was deeply satisfied with her work, with what she had achieved, with what she had seen. She had been very content with her marriage to your great grandfather. There was nothing left to be done. Her life was complete and, in the real sense of the word, she felt she was beginning to suffer. Yes, I know that she died feeling totally fulfilled."
"But what you did was wrong in the eyes of the law."
"Yes. I knew I had broken the law and your great grandmother also knew that I would face problems.
"But you still went ahead."
"We, particularly your grandmother, hoped some good might come of it. I was, after all, that rare being - a scientist, a Professor of Biology and a Minister in Government. I had tried for many years to raise the issue of overpopulation. I argued strongly for the rights and dignity of elderly people many thousands of whom I felt were experiencing genuine suffering imposed by a system that required them to be kept alive long after any quality of life had passed. So when the time came and my own mother asked me to help her die I used my arrest and my trial to say more things that our leaders did not want discussed, did not want to hear or did not want the public to know."
His grandson looked at him, perhaps expecting more on the circumstances of the death of his grandmother but it was not to be.
Instead, 'The Professor' struggled to stand up, stretched to ease a pain in his back and looked up into the grey clouds as the first drops of rain fell.
"May is usually such a good month for weather. I always looked forward to May." He paused, looked at his grandson still sitting on the ground. "So, you come to this open prison for advice from a convicted murderer and a disgraced politician."
The younger man stood up, the tears going. He looked at his grandfather straight in the eye. "I came to talk to my grandfather. My grandfather is someone that I and many of my friends admire for speaking out when you did. I think I also understand about my grandmother."
The old man sniffed, perhaps embarrassed by unexpected praise for his past, but he had no wish to dwell there. Instead, he reverted to the earlier questions.
"So," he said, "Having got that thorny subject out of the way, shall we return to discussing the so-called newcomers that you have been invited, for whatever reason, to fight. Who are they? Where do they come from and why did they come? I assume they thought your grass was actually greener than theirs, that life here was better than theirs had been, that it was safer, that food was more plentiful, that life would be easier, that they would become wealthier, that jobs were more plentiful, that there was more freedom, more space to breathe and more opportunities to bring more children into this world. If so, then from what you tell me, they have all made a serious mistake because the quality of life here and now is little better than theirs was." He paused. "Am I right? If so, then surely it is better to show them that your predicaments are identical, that there is no point in fighting over nothing and instead sit down together and decide, as amicably as possible, what to do."
"But I think it is too late for discussions now."
"Then the reasons for the fighting you have been asked to engage in go far deeper than anger and discontent. You have entered the phase of what I once termed total desperation. It is akin to the fighting that erupts in a cage of rats when the food and water has run out. Overcrowded, caged rats have even been shown to become addicted to heroin and resort to cannibalism. You'll be grateful to know I'm not advocating cannibalism but try explaining your thinking to me."
"We are just like the rats in the cage, grandfather, and the cage seems to get smaller and smaller and more and more crowded as thousands and thousands more people arrive from across Asia and Africa. And it is no longer just Europe that they come to now. The people smugglers are carrying them on routes into north America and into parts of South East Asia where they see plentiful food, water and space.
"Politicians still call it economic migration but it is no longer that, grandfather. They spend their last money to leave their home countries beh
ind, desperate for better lives. And these migrations started many years ago when poor, desperate people from Africa and Asia began migrating by boat across the Mediterranean and across land into Europe. But the numbers then were small by comparison. There are now so many that no-one is able to stop them and they disappear into the community. But we all understand their problems. We talk to them, we feel pity and we would welcome them. But we, too, have just as many problems as they do back in their countries."
He paused, almost breathless. "So, what can we do?"
'The Professor' sighed.
"What is your opinion of world leaders? Can you and your friends detect any sign of decisions being made?"
He knew the answer only too well but he posed the question anyway.
"They have no plans. They argue, prevaricate, they cannot agree."
"Of course. It is exactly as it always was. There are no leaders big enough or brave enough for a world of almost 12 billion people of a thousand different cultures. Any that show promise as strong world leaders are quickly forced to compromise and to seek consensus with weak leaders. Watered down compromises cannot work when there is only one scientifically sound solution. And that solution, the one I wrote - that single paragraph typed on one small sheet of paper - has sat on the table for forty years. But they ignore it because they