Have A Little Faith

• Lionel Furtado, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2010

It is a chilly misty night. The street lamps are like illuminated hanging crystals that pierce the dark with sharpened dagger-like light. All is still, except for one lonesome soul that wanders in the darkness of the grim night.

The dark figure creeps silently towards an unknown destination, seemingly oblivious to the severe cold, his only focus being on his path. A fine veil of mist shrouds his confused hopeless form as he ploughs on through the fog, continuing on his way.

His heavy footsteps and troubled breathing are the only sounds that disrupt the ghostly silence of the unwelcoming atmosphere. He is an outcast; a poor man with no hope, who calls the streets his home. He is a deserted wanderer, with no one to stand up for him or give him a chance.

He finally sits down, propping himself up against a mud stained wall. He begins to reflect on past glories, on the days when everything had been going well for him.
But that was before his bad habits had been revealed in the public eye. Soon, everyone had learned about his gambling addiction, and he was looked upon him with a disdainful eye, his every action criticized and condemned. Then, slowly, as time went by, and as his successful life went down the drain, all the people that he had known had disowned him. In his time of need, even his wife and children left him, and sure enough he ended up on the streets.

The man looks up and notices that one of the street lights is flickering on and off intermittently. After a few moments, it finally goes dead. He thinks about it and realizes that it bears some symbolic resemblance to his own life. He had once been a high flying corporate executive, proverbially, at the top of the world, and then, in the blink of an eye all that had disappeared, only to be replaced by the daunting reality of poverty and depression, with no hope of regaining a stable life.

With his mind troubled by despair and hopelessness, the man becomes increasingly tired: physically, mentally and emotionally, with each moment that he lives.
Then suddenly, at the forefront of his mind, he fondly remembers the voice of mother in his subconscious, telling him that if he is ever in times of trouble or need, to take refuge in and trust God.

So, reminding himself that he has nothing more to lose, he kneels down on the hard, concrete foot path and whispers a prayer to God. When he finishes, he sits back down, his head resting against the wall. All of a sudden, he feels a heavy burden lifting off his shoulders; sure enough, God has heard his prayer.

He smiles faintly, for the first time in a long time.