The Lessons Life Teaches, A Collection of Short Stories.

A Moment in Time

A young homeless man, for whatever cause, does not fit into our society. A proverbial square peg in a round hole. He roams the streets but is especially given to hang out at the grocery store parking lot – much to the chagrin of the store manager. Most people, whom even notice his existence, wonder why he even exists. Though he is not a bad person, he has little ambition to better himself.

One day, while near the front door of the market, asking people for some loose change, he eyes a well to do woman with a small boy standing in the grocery cart coming in from the parking lot. Unexpectedly, the young boy loses his balance and begins to tumble from the cart. The homeless man dashes to the cart and grabs the child saving the boy from a horrible fall. Fate has just stepped in, because if the boy had continued to fall, he would have hit his head and had a concussion that would have left him mentally impaired for life. The mother who was distracted did not see her son's distress and assumed this dirty, homeless man was attempting to kidnap her son. She screams for help. The homeless young man steps back saying he was just trying to help. The store manager descends onto the scene and quickly calls the police. They arrive and take the young man to the local jail. That night, for whatever reason, the young homeless man is repeatedly shanked and dies in a pool of his own blood on the cold concrete floor of the jail. No one morns the loss. The store manager, hearing of the death, has even less heart, saying he is glad the bum will no longer be hanging around the store irritating his customers.

Time passes. The boy saved by the homeless man is raised well by his parents. He attends the best schools, enjoys learning and does well. He learns good morals from his parents and family. He enters politics and works his way up from the city council, to assemblyman, to governor, then senator. From there he elected president. He proves himself as a great, able leader. He avoids unnecessary wars that would have taken many young men's lives. He works on the issues of poverty and makes an impact on many difficult social issues, improving people's lives. At the end of his second presidential term, in his last speech, he thanks his parents, his professors and colleagues for making his administration such a success. There is no mention, nor memory, of the homeless man who saved him many years earlier when he was just a boy. But in that one moment in time, that one second in the grocery store parking lot, the homeless man also changed history and ultimately changed the world. He is buried in pauper's field with no stone to mark his grave. His greatness never to be known or understood. But none the less, in that instant, his actions changed the world for the better.