1 The Eye of the Beholder



The Eye of the Beholder

A rooster was strutting around the yard, busily looking for good things to eat.  Peck, peck scratch, scratch it went.   He gobbled down a piece of barley-corn with greedy satisfaction.

 Every time it found some food it gobbled it down then stretched his neck up high and flapped his wings in delight.  Then he shook out all his feathers and strutted to the far side of the yard, eyes alert for more good food. 

 Then he saw something glimmering underneath the dusty straw beside the barn.  Oh-ho!  What was that?  Scratch, scratch, scratch!  He worked industriously, trying to root out the object, which glowed in the morning sun.  A moment later, he dug out a very large pink pearl.  

He stared at the pearl, looking at it first through his right eye, and then through his left. What sort of strange seed was this?  He pecked it a couple of times.   It rolled back and forth under the force of his strong beak, but it didn’t break open like a seed would after such a blow.  He scratched at it with his claws.  Still nothing.  

The pearl rolled a few inches away from Rooster’s foot and landed next to spare barley corn that the hens had missed.  With a delighted cluck, Rooster pounced on the barleycorn and gobbled it up. 

He then took a step back and his foot slipped when it landed on the pearl.  Reminded once again of the strange pink seed, he turned around to look at it. He eyed the pearl suspiciously and pecked it again.  It didn’t break open, so he gave a cluck of disgust.  No prize there.  Who could possibly want a seed so hard you couldn’t eat it?  Not him.  He preferred barley.  
He strutted away, his keen eyes on the lookout for more barley.  Behind him, the lost pearl, a 200-carat natural salt-water pearl valued at over £1000. 

It glinted unheeded in the morning sun.  It was of no interest to him. The value of everything lies in the eye of the beholder. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

24 The Love of Art.

The Love of Art. I disliked art when I was at school, and that dislike went on into my working life. Then I discovered that art was nothing like the idea I had built up about it. There was a little boy called Mark who like me disliked the art time at school. He just could not for the life of himself draw. he was continually getting into trouble because the more he tried the more he disliked it.  Then one day he found a beautiful pencil. He just could not resist. He picked it up and drew a circle. He immediately knew it was not a good circle and was about to throw it away like all the others before.  But then he heard a voice saying to him, " You are not going to leave me like this? No mouth or nose or eyes. go on give me a mouth." So he did and was told not a good one and rubbed it out and tried again the drawing telling him how to make it better. This went on for most of the day until he discovered he had a good looking face before him. He was pleased.  ...
Read more

11 The Three Vinegar Tasters

The Three Vinegar Tasters Three famous sages are standing around a large bowl holding vinegar.  The first man has a sour expression, the second a bitter expression but the third person is smiling.  The three are Confucius, Buddha and Lao Tzu.    To Confucius, life seemed rather sour. He believed that the present was not in harmony with the past and that the government of man on earth was out of harmony with the Way of Heaven. Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time. A saying was recorded about Confucius: "If the mat was not straight, the Master would not sit."   To Buddha, the second figure, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering. The world was seen as a setter of traps, a generator of illusions, a revolving wheel of pain for all creatu...
Read more

28 The Happiness Angels

The Happiness Angels   There was once a boy who hardly had any toys or money. Nevertheless, he was a very happy boy. He said that what made him happy was doing things for others, this he said was what gave him a good feeling inside. Sadly, no one really believed him; they thought he was just silly and simple. Yet he spent all day helping others, dispensing charity to the poorest, and looking after abandoned animals. Very seldom did he ever do anything for himself. One day, he met a famous doctor who thought the boy's case was so peculiar that he decided to investigate him. So, with a complex system of cameras and tubes, the doctor managed to record what was happening inside the boy. What he discovered was surprising. Each time the boy did something good, a thousand tiny angels gathered around the boy's heart and started tickling it. Having explained the boy's happiness, the doctor continued studying and he discovered that we all ...
Read more