He sat outside the train station. His cold clothes dank upon his back. A threadbare hat that had seen many decades lay on front of him with a small handwritten sign. In the early days he would write little messages, advise, jokes, anything to get the attention of a passerby and hopefully a few pence to add to the coppers in his pocket. People often had a perception that beggars would spend all of their money on alcohol or drugs and that they only had themselves to blame. It could hardly be further from the truth, and day after day he sat upon the heavy box. Weeks gave way to months, months to years and the cycle continued through flood and drought.

A time came when a well-dressed man, with a long white beard would stop and talk to the beggar. He would bring him tea or a sandwich some days, but although this was nice, it was something else that he most appreciated. It was the dignity that he showed him, while so many others shunned him, the bearded man would ask him about his life and struggles. He would enquire about what made him happy and whether he had a family of his own someplace.

He looked forward to the meetings and the last time that he met him, the well-dressed man asked him a question:

"That box you are sitting on, how long have you sat upon it?"

"This? I can't remember, though easily ten years I would say"

came the reply.

"Did you ever look inside it?"

With that the well-dressed man smiled and walked away. A few minutes passed; then the beggar stood up and looked at the box. He looked for the latch and slowly opened it up. Tears streamed down his face, as the unmistakable shimmer of the gold bars lit up his sunken face.

His days as a beggar were over.

Five Minute Free Writes

When I first arrived on Hive or the previous chain, I would often struggle for ideas on what to write about, and there were two writing initiatives that really helped - one was called #fiftywords where you could use only fifty words to tell a story about a prompt word and the other was #freewrite which basically sets a challenge of writing a mini story within 5 minutes. I regularly took part in both, and people like @mariannewest, @felt.buzz, @brisby, @snook and loads of other brilliant people, so every now and then I see a post from @mariannewest and think to myself, go and do a freewtrite, so that is just what I did eleven days ago and I enjoyed it, so here I am back for another freewriting fix. I hope to continue to pop in every now and then to say hello.

Maybe you've never heard of the freewrites yourself, and if that is the case, I'd encourage you to have a go, read about todays prompt and how to enter below and above all else mind yourself and have a great day - smile, rub a dog, help a stranger and just be a nice human.

https://hive.blog/hive-161155/@mariannewest/day-1818-5-minute-freewrite-friday-prompt-awareness

The photo used is not my own and was sourced on www.pixabay.com