short story - joy

  Once, there was a poor man. His stomach was invariably empty as he barely had 3 meals a day. He lived in a ramshackle flat and was always pressed for house rent by the landlord. He was a student of a college in a town and he could barely provide himself with the discounted education fee for his financially challenging background. At day, he studied hard and at night, he worked as a part-time crew to eke a living.

   He craved to win a scholarship but things did not go as he wished. To pay his delayed house rent, he had to work at day too and thus had less time to revise his academic works.  On the next day of his night-work, it was hard to concentrate on the lectures. He prayed every day to God to help him excel in his academy. However, he was far from scholarship but on the verge of retaining another year.

  He was bitter about his life. ‘Why wasn’t I born in a more affluent family? I could have tuition like my peers instead of working as a part-time crew.’

‘Even if my family was in middle class, I could have achieved better academy.’

‘If my parents had worked hard to earn more money, I wouldn’t have to suffer this miserable poverty.’

‘Why am I given with poverty while others with wealth?’

He bore a grudge against God.

‘Why doesn’t God grant me some joy?’

  One day, after his part-time work, he was dragging his frazzled body home. His head down facing the ground, he moped about his unhappy life, speculating aboout existence of joy and when joy would ever come for him.

  After a few minutes of trudging, he jutted his head up and stood agape with surprise. What loomed ahead of him was a splendor. The sun was hung on the horizon of the sky, touching the edge of the mountain, its brilliant beam blinding the man to see the short, thin line of the slope. The peak of the mountain soared into the sky was so tall that it almost seemed that it could hook the fringe of clouds. The layer of clouds was so thin that it looked like cottons shredded across the sky. The rays from the dazzling ball dyed the blue sky and the white clouds in golden red. Thin strips of light shades were formed between the reddened clouds.

  The man gazed at the scenery in awe. It looked like a perfect combination of two regions beyond the horizon. He forgot about his grief but was overwhelmed with poetic sentiments and wished he could keep the picturesque scenery in his memory as vivid as possible. He wondered why he had been passing this place indifferently. He eyed the landscape closely and realised what attracted him was the sunset. He stood there still and indulged himself in the scenery until the sun hid behind the mountain and the darkness fell.

  On his way home, he felt fatigue had left him and his body seemed to be lighter. He kept flashing the view on his mind because he knew it would be hard to catch the sunset on the mountain again and thus he wanted to preserve the rare image fresh as long as possible. He thought he would be happy if he could watch the scenery everyday.

  Then, he realised. His question about joy was solved. Joy is joy because it is rare.  Because of its rareness, people rejoice when joy finally finds them. The man knew, whether how long joy would take to reach him, it would be great enough to beat his past anguish.

  On that day he found a new joy when he found the scenery.