The Sad Man

A sad man in a sad house was finally taken to a sad nursing home where other sad people sat around drooling from their sad mouths and searching hopelessly-wordlessly-through sad eyes.

Happy children with happy smiles would come to visit the sad people and bring light into the sad nursing home. But the sad man sat in his sad room and would not see the happy children, for they reminded him of what he never had.

Bright women with bright eyes would come to talk to the sad people and bring laughter to the sad nursing home. But the sad man sat in his sad room and would not see the bright women, for they reminded him of what he never had.

A writer came to visit the sad people in the sad nursing home. “Tell me your stories,” he told the sad people, but most just stared at him with their sad eyes and mumbled nothings from their sad mouths. The sad man stayed in his sad room, for all of his stories reminded him of what he could have had.

Finally the writer found the sad man in his sad room and asked him for his stories. The sad man shook his sad head and looked around his sad room as if to say, “This is my story.”

The writer was a clever man with a quick mind and a caring heart. He saw the sad man in his sad clothes in such a sad room and he knew the sadness came from somewhere. “Tell me your story. Everyone has a story. Something led you here. Tell me your story.”

The sad man was silent with his sad thoughts but quietly, quickly, his sad words started to fall from his sad lips.

The sad man told of a sad childhood with no mother and a sad father. He told of a sad war where he lost many of his friends and came home to people who didn’t understand his sadness. He told of a beautiful woman with blue eyes and blonde hair who loved him until, in his sad drinking, he got mad and made the beautiful woman sad and took their sad kids and left him to his sadness. He told of how his sad friends who made it through the sad war took a sad way out and he couldn’t help them in time. He told how he almost took the sad way out, too, until he adopted a dog who made him happy until the dog got sick and the sad man was too poor to save his friend and on a sad day in October he put down the last friend he had. Finally, when his sad body was too weak to take care of him, a neighbor helped bring him to this sad nursing home where he would live the last few sad months of his sad life.

“That is indeed a sad story,” said the writer, watching the sad man wipe a sad tear from his sad cheek.

“If you must use it,” said the sad man in a sad, tired tone, “Make it dark, lonely, and painful and shameful. Let others learn from my mistakes. I don’t want anyone to end up sad like me.”

The writer nodded, shook hands with the sad man, and then left the sad room and the sad nursing home.

Shortly afterwards the sad man died his sad death and went to his sad grave. The writer became wealthy and wrote many, many stories, but he never forgot the one about the sad man. Everyday he kissed his happy wife and his happy kids. He did his best to live a happy life so that he would never ever end up like the sad man in the sad room, just as the old man had wished.

The End