Ice Cream And Dreams

It was a boring summer day. His father was outside in the baking heat working on their meager vegetable plants. His mother was cooking and his sister was scrubbing the kitchen floor. He knew he should go help his father but right now all he could think about was getting an ice-cream from the village market. He still had some money left over from the birthday money his grandfather had given him—just enough to buy one for himself and one for his father (to make up for escaping work). “I’ll just run and get them” he decided “and then I’ll help him with whatever he’s doing.” He set off down the path pretending not to hear when his sister called after him to ask where he was going. He had only walked for few minutes when he suddenly felt a tap on his arm. Turning he saw a very old bent man peering up at him with watery eyes. In a tone of great urgency the man said “Could I borrow your dreams?” The boy innocently said “yes”. The man asked “What do you dream of?” The boy said “of playing in the rain and eating lemons with my friends  of riding a donkey down that hill of becoming like my father of candies and... “. The old man started crying. The boy could not understand why the old man was crying and asked him “Where are your dreams?” The old man said “I lost them when I entered the world”. The boy said “wait here and I will come in sometime.” The boy returned after sometime with two ice-creams and while giving one of them to the old man said “give this ice-cream to the world and get your dreams back from it”. The old man put his hand on the boy’s head and murmured something and smiled while the tears kept rolling down his eyes. The boy could not understand why he was still crying after getting the ice-cream and left him  to go back to his home with one ice-cream ostensibly to be given to his dad to make up for escaping the work.