tUESDAY, jULY15TH 2008

7:30pm

A little boy passed by my house just now.

At first I didn’t know what for, but I saw him walk away looking so defeated that I went to ask my parents the purpose of his short visit.

He was selling chocolate. We didn’t buy any, but… It just broke my heart to know that he had been walking for hours, going door to door, being rejected time and time again.

And then I imagined someone saying: “Sure I’ll buy a couple bars! How much?” and the little boy’s face would light up with glimmering hope: an oasis in the desert. But the adult’s face would fall as he heard the price, instantly regretting his foolhardy purchase. The boy would see the sudden change in the man’s expression and understand. After all, children are much more perceptive than adults give them credit for. He would understand, and see oasis was barely a couple of palm trees, hardly big enough to provide shade. The adult would grudgingly buy three, and the boy would continue on door to door, rejection after rejection…

And I just think: What if the prize for selling the most candy bars for charity was a new bike? A red, shiny new bike he kept riding around town in his dreams? What if he only sold fifteen bars – less than a third of his original total and far from what he wished and expected. It saddens me to see people who work hard and still struggle to keep up go unrewarded. Defeat was written all over that boy: on his face, in his eyes, in his walk, in his shuffling feet, in his hands which clung to his small satchel as if he were desperate to hang on to something – anything – for support.

I just wanted to run out to the street and ask him for a chocolate bar. See his eyes light up, reach into his bag and take the money in exchange.

A smile for a thank you, a nod for a no biggie.

It would have been the sweetest chocolate bar I’d ever tasted.