Once there was a very
poor man, who had lost his family and been deserted by his friends
after falling on hard times. He was very hungry, and very tired, and felt he
would not be able
to live much longer, such was his despair and such was his hunger.
One day, as he walked
back to the shack he was forced to call home in the filth of the gutter,
after another day spent trudging the streets in search of work, something
sparkling in the muck
caught his eye. He had grown accustomed to keeping his eyes downcast, to avoid
the disgust
of the more affluent and in the hope he might find some discarded food. He bent
to the glimmer,
and found amongst the grime a piece of gold, which had caught and reflected the
last rays of the
setting sun. Disbelieving, he stared at the answered wish that lay in his palm.
The poor man was able
to eat well for the first time in months, and the next day with a full belly he
walked all day in the gutters of the city, sure that if he searched he would
find another piece of gold.
He no longer kept his eyes cast down in shame, but in hope.
But he found no gold that day, or the next.
After many months of
searching the gutters for another answered wish, the man was very ill.
He kept searching until his legs could no longer carry him, and lay down then in
the filth of the
gutter and waited to die.
As his eyes closed for
the last time, he turned his face to catch the last rays of the setting sun,
and realized that in casting his eyes always to the gutter he had wasted
the precious gold of the sun, and of his life.