Why is he always telling stories?
Why doesn’t he just say what he means?
A full moon smile rose on the strange boy’s cheeks.
“Here’s a good one. Once, dad fired one of our orchard managers.”
“Okay. What happened?”
“Before he cleaned out his desk, the manager called a meeting with all the orchard people.”
“No, I mean why did he get fired?”
“And at this meeting he says “Alright everyone, I’m feeling generous today. Everyone who owes us anything, get our your bills, mark them down by half. I’ll sign off.” Just like that he cut all their debts in half, on his last day!”
“What!? He was already fired. He can’t do that, right?“
“He figured his little display of generosity might win him some new friends. It worked too. They loved him for it. He couch-surfed with some of them until he found steady work again.”
“Well, what did your dad do, wasn’t he mad?”
“Hah, no way! He almost rehired him.”
“But the guy cheated! He basically gave away your dad’s money!”
A laughing stream broke their path.
“Here, I know the way across. Watch where I put my feet.”
“You still didn’t tell me why he got fired.”
“Oh. I guess he got afraid. He got stingy with the orchard, anyhow.”
On the other side, the strange boy drew some numbers in the dust.
“How much is $1,000 worth? Or $10,000? Or $10 million?”
“How long does any wealth last?”
He looked up and the sun filled his eyes.
“How much is a friendship worth?”
“How long does a friendship last?”
Daylight was courting the horizon now.
The confident path sped their steps.
“Still, I don’t think your dad should let people just give away his stuff.”
“If you owned all the stars, how many would you give away?”
“Can you waste something that never runs out?”
Something in his chest sprung.
“It’s like I always say, little brother…
…the only way to lose your life is to try to save it.”
Moonbeams are quite soft underfoot, you know.
So they went on silently, for a while.