There once was a boy
Who lived with his mother in a
Rickety, tired old house

The house was constantly cold,
Even in the summertime
It was colored a dull grey and most of the paint had already chipped off
The floorboards moaned with contempt
The door hinges wined for freedom as they were opened
It was a miserable place

But, behind the crippled house there was an oasis
A spectacular backyard where
The grass was always green
Birds were always singing and
Flowers his mother planted were always blooming

An oak tree graced the center of the oasis
It loomed over the house and eased the heat of the midday sun
The boy would spend entire days playing in its branches

Most nights, the boy would not budge from the tree
And begged to sleep in its warm and loving embrace

He would argue,
‘It is more comfortable than my bed’
This always infuriated his mom

One day, the boy’s mom asked him to go into town
And trade their disease-ridden cow for some coins
The boy reluctantly accepted

At the market place, the boy noticed a strange old woman
Focusing on him
Unsettled, the boy asked the women why she was staring at him
She said,
‘That is a fine cow you have. Would you like to trade it?’
Thrilled with his find the boy answered,
‘Of course I would! Do you have any coins?’
‘Unfortunately I do not’, replied the woman,
‘But I have something better’
Intrigued, he asked,‘What is it?’

‘5 magic beans’ said the old woman
‘Are they really magical? questioned the boy
‘Of course they are!’ shouted the woman
‘Do you take me for a crook?’
‘No’ replied the boy sheepishly

The boy sprinted home
He could not wait to show his mom what he had found
He burst threw the door, nearly tearing it off its hinges,
‘Mom!’ he screamed ecstatically, ‘Look what I got for our cow!’
‘What is this, some kind of seed?’ said his mom
‘I thought I asked you to get coins”
‘You did, but I found something better
They are magic beans’
With a frustrated look on her face,
His mom threw the magic beans straight out the window


‘How are magic beans going to help us?’
With that, the boy stormed upstairs,
Distraught

The next morning, the boy rose from his bed after a restless night
He peered out his window, hoping for a better day
And saw the towering stalk
It completely eclipsed the Oak tree
And drenched the air with it’s sweet fragrance

The boy could not believe his eyes
He realized that the magic beans his mother threw out the window
Had grown into the stalk overnight
With pure joy fueling his body, he jumped from his window,
Onto the stalk
There he played for hours and hours

The stalk seemed to pierce the clouds
The boy, having nothing better to do,
Decided to explore the stalk
He climbed and climbed
He climbed so high
That he could no longer see his house or the Oak tree
He now was amongst the clouds

After a long trek, he eventually reached the top of the stalk
Before him lay a magical kingdom
Breathless, either from the sight of this land or the altitude
He stumbled off the stalk and ran
Through endless fields of tall grass that tickled his ankles
The wind softly caressed his wind-burned face
And tossed his mangled hair from side to side
He lost his feet in a patch of sunflowers


With the sun, a warm blanket on his back,
He was at peace

He was lying down, face turned up,
When he saw a shadow that stretched over him
He sat up and looked eye to eye with a twenty foot giant

For a moment neither of them moved
Both shocked at each other’s image
The boy tried to run but the tall grass he was lying in shackled his feet
The giant picked him up and sang a horrifying toon that went:

‘Fee-fi-fo-fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!’

As the giant sang,
The wind viciously whipped his face that was strewn with tears
His once carefree hair
Became straight and grey
The sun burned is back
Overwhelmed with emotion,
He fainted

A few hours later, the boy awoke and brushed the soot from his shirt
He was staring at a dark, cold, slab of stone
The giant had imprisoned him in the castle
The frightening sense of defeat
Began to engulf him
Suddenly, the boy saw a beautiful woman walking through the hall
She said to him,
‘I can get you out of here’
‘Really?’ the boy answered, ‘How?’
The woman told him about a secret passageway she built
To eventually escape herself

As the boy exited the castle,
He saw a bag of coins resting next to a golden harp and a goose that laid golden eggs
The boy thought to himself,
For all the giant has taken from me, isn’t it fair that
I should take something from him?
So, with the bag of coins in hand,
The boy quickly slid down the stalk

When the boy returned home,
His mother was thrilled about the bag of coins
She was so happy with the treasure,
That she did not even bother to question its source
She took the bag of coins to the market and
Prepared a lavish feast
That night the boy did not want to sleep under the Oak tree

Driven by gluttony,
The boy dared to climb the stalk one last time
To steal another treasure from the giant’s cave
Again he played happily in the field
And again got locked up by the giant
The woman, again,
Came to his rescue
He went down the same passageway,
Found the cave and stole the golden harp

The harp played magically soothing music
And must have been worth thousands

The boy displayed the harp in the town square
For the townspeople to gawk and whisper about
He soon made more money
Than his mother had ever seen

His mother was so pleased by the wealth,
That she indulged her son with gifts and expensive clothing

The boy’s mom was accepted into the town’s elite society
She was always at parties and
Most times did not come home for days

Even though the boy missed his mom,
She had hired servants to heed to his every word
The hole that could not be filled,
Was filled with money


Every night,
The boy’s servants played the harp to him until he fell asleep

Once again, he did not want to sleep under the Oak tree

Soon
The boy began to feel the same urge
Of greediness
So he sprinted up the stalk



This time,
He did not even play in the wondrous field
Or admire the sunflowers
He marched toward the castle
In search of the giant

The giant found the boy
Pacing the halls
The giant was too simple to realize
The boy was stealing from his cave
So, the boy went through the same routine again
The woman, with frustrated eyes,
Bailed the boy out again

Just before he left,
The woman asked the boy if he would rescue her
He said, ‘I can’t possibly save you and the take the goose.
I would have to be a hero’

He left with the goose
And the woman solemnly watched him go.

Because of his newfound fame, the boy’s house was made into a museum
His glorious backyard
Turned into a cement parking lot

The museum made the town rich
And the people poor
The market closed

One day the Oak tree was cut down

The boy and his mom moved to the city
They bought an apartment building and lived purely off the goose
And soon,
All their problems vanished

No more floorboard moaning
And door hinge wining

No more restless nights
No more tear soaked pillows

No more scavenging for scraps
No more writhing from empty stomach aches

No more painful goodbyes
And treacherous hellos

No more living so close to the edge
You think you have already fallen

No more wishing
No more needing
No more thanking
No more giving

No more humor
No more fun

No more patience
No more morals

No more virtue
No more originality

No more obscurity
No more ingenuity

No more helpfulness
Way more bitterness

Like I said,
No more troubles