The Gambler

He walked on listlessly, pushing past and being pushed by the milling hundreds that swarmed the footpath, going about their own lives as if they would live forever. His mind was a jumble of thoughts, a swirl of emotion, he knew not where he was going. His feet moved mechanically. He wore a lost expression, his eyes lifeless.....soulless. He had lost everything, everything.

His feet stopped and the sudden lack of movement dragged him out of his reverie, before him was a ragged toothless beggar, ugly and deformed. He reached into his pockets, and took out what he had, sadly he gazed at it, that was the last thing he owned in the world apart from the clothes he wore on his body. Without stooping down, he dropped the coin into the beggars bowl, and dragged his feet along, a weary traveller on the road home. The beggar looked at the fifty paisa coin in disgust and threw it into the gutter.....nowadays people gave him two rupees, sometimes even five.

He walked on, for how long he knew not, but at length he found himself on the familiar sands of the beach, a spot he had once frequented, but that was another time, another life.
As he watched the gently waves lap the shore and smelled the familiar salt air, he felt light headed and clear, he felt........happy, what an unfamiliar word that was.......happy, yes that was the word for it, his memory was not that bad after all. The sea was beckoning to him, calling to him from her cool deep blue waters, a blessed repose after a hard days work.

He staggered, step by step, moving like a toddler learning to walk, he was upto his knees in the cold water, but he could not feel it, nor could he smell the fresh air or hear the gulls screech. Suddenly he felt a new sensation that penetrated the foggy mists of his mind. He looked down to see a strange wrinkled hand clutching his shoulder, strangely warm against his cold bare arm.
Confused, he looked up to see the familiar face of a beggar, toothless and deformed, he offered no resistance as the beggar took his hand and pressed within them a small, cold coin, "here", he said, "i think you need this more than i do". With those words, the beggar limped away, away from the gambler, away from the beach and the salty sea, back to his dirty corner to beg.

Hesitantly, the man looked down into his outstretched palm, his mind just recovering from the strange sensation of being touched, he had not felt skin for a long time, longer than he could remember. As he looked down upon it, he saw that it was his last fifty paisa coin. His eyes, red and watery became unfocused, his vision blurred by the drops of sorrow that were threatening to break out. He opened his mouth slowly, his voice hoarse, "Thank you", he whispered into the moist air, "Thank you".

None of the gulls screeched that night, none of the crabs crawled onto the shore, there was no movement save for the gentle sea, caressing the sands as it moved closer, then farther away. A few feet from the sea, there lie a quivering figure, doubled over, his face in the sand, weeping.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling