Sand Castles

There was a man who believed he held the world on a string, but in truth it was the world that held him.

One day as he walked along, he began to feel fatigued and rested on a bench at a nearby park.
After a few minutes, he noticed a young girl staring at him. He asked her if there was something he could help her with.

She continued to look at him, and asked quite solemnly, “Why are you so sad?” The man was taken by surprise and asked the girl what she meant. “You’re sitting all alone, staring off into space, on such a beautiful day…” He cracked a fake smile at the girl as he got up to leave. “Please think about it,” the girl called out to him. “Everyone should be happy.”

The man continued on his day, but the words would not leave him. He went to work and smiled and laughed with his co-workers, but he began to see that neither he nor they were happy. They only presented this appearance so that others would not be concerned. He decided to investigate this.

The man thought of an idea: he’d think about the first time he was really happy, and he would write a book on everything from that point on to figure out just where he went wrong.

The man found, however, that he could not recall the last time he could consider himself “happy”.
He asked his friends if maybe they could remember when he was happy last, but they were few and none of them could say.

It was at this time a rather impressionable thought crossed his mind. The girl knew immediately that he wasn’t happy; she must then know the secret behind happiness!

The man returned to the park but the girl was nowhere to be found. He waited for about an hour, but to no avail.

The man went back to the park every day, but it was all in vain, as the girl never appeared.

One day, after waiting for the girl (as he had now come to do habitually) he thought about trying something new. The man remembered what the girl had been doing before, and went to the nearby vacant sandbox to try working on a sand castle.

When the man began his first attempt at building one of these grainy fortresses, he severely lacked any talent and could not mold the sand well at all. The more he kept at it, however, the more tricks he learned. He found that by utilizing water from a nearby drinking fountain, he could mold the sand as he pleased. He took a small amount of pleasure in overcoming the resilience of the sand, and continued to practice his new art.

As the months passed, the man grew very fond of his new hobby; though he was sure it made him look silly. He had become a master sand castle builder, and decided to put his skill to the test.

The man set aside three days where he would do nothing except work on his castle, and camp by it at night to ensure its protection. Thus, he began.

His castle was of the utmost importance to him, and he took great diligence to ensure this would be his best one ever. He found it’s foundation to be quick tricky, as it had just rained, and made the sand difficult to work with. He also found this particular one to be very time consuming, but he was dedicated to his castle, which was becoming truly impressive as he continued to make great strides.

Though he was determined to ensure this would be his best castle ever, the man had a vast amount of experience and was already nearly done. He decided his hard work had merited a break, and so he returned home for a meal as well as a short nap. When he returned however, he found his magnificent castle had been demolished!

The man was at a complete loss, and actually began to weep. He lamented the loss of his castle for quite some time, and finally got up to head home.

As he was leaving, an old man happened to sit next to the spot he had just occupied on the bench. “Might I ask what’s troubling you, sir?” the old man asked. There was an eon of wisdom and kindness in his brilliantly faded eyes.
“Well, this might seem silly,” the man started, “but I’ve been waiting for a little girl to come back. She used to play here a lot but she hasn't come around lately, so I started building sand castles to pass the time. But look! My masterpiece is ruined!”

The old man turned to face him inquisitively.
“What do you mean?” he asked quite earnestly.
“I mean my sand castle has been destroyed!” the man replied, dispiritedly.
“You remind me of my son, when he was about your age... How has it been destroyed? The sand is still there, you have plenty of water.”
“But that was three days of hard work, gone! Three days of my life I’ll never get back.”
“How is it gone?” the old man pressed on, still rather baffled. “You did great work, I’m sure. It’ll make your next castle that much better.”
“My next castle? Why bother? It’ll just get destroyed.”
“And if it hadn’t, what would you have done? Guarded it forever?”
For the first time, the relatively younger man felt like understood what his elder had been trying to tell him.

“And as for the three days of your life, if you had them back, what would you do with them?”
“Something I could’ve enjoyed, that wouldn’t have been a waste.”
“Like?”
The man had to really stop and think. “… probably build sand castles.”
The old man just smiled.
“I’d really like to see one of those sand castles someday, if it’s not asking too much.”
“Nah, I’d be glad to show you sometime.”
The man himself couldn’t help but chuckle, and the man thanked the older man for his time as they said their farewells and he turned to leave.
The man had one last question though.
“Say, if you don’t mind my asking, why are you sitting outside alone, this late in the day?”
“I’m waiting on my granddaughter; she likes to build sand castles too.”

As the man turned to walk away, he saw the little girl he had been looking for all this time.

“Hey, it’s you!” the man exclaimed, excited to have finally accomplished his goal.
“Hi. You seem happy now, I’m glad.” The girl said as she walked on passed him.
“I am. I guess I have you to thank for that, huh?”
She smiled at him, and at her grandfather, as she skipped over to the sandbox to play.

The man continued to walk back to his apartment, but looking back he saw how much fun the girl was having, and that the old man was helping as well.
He couldn’t help but notice how young the old man now seemed, playing gleefully with his granddaughter in the sand box.
He thought about the promise he had just made about building the old man a sand castle, and could find no reason why he couldn’t do it now, even if he didn’t have three days to finish it.

The man turned back around, and asked the pair if they’d like some help.
The both of them gladly agreed, and the three of them began working on a new sand castle.
They continued to work well into the night, as the sun began to set and the street lamps came on.

The man felt happy, and oddly at peace.
He was here doing what he loved, with people who had quickly become his good friends.
He found he finally had a starting point for his book, though he no longer had a need for it.