麦老陪你睡前5分钟

Five Minutes

Imagine sitting herein a wooden chair with Chinese soft somethings under your ass, leaning on agreen laminated particle board twice processed table. You’ve been here for awhile. You’re miserable because you hate your job. You wait for the accenteddrawl of the guest social media marketing specialist from Tuscaloosa to endlike a root canal. You wait for his mouth to seal like two slices on a grilledcheese sandwich. You wait for the grizzly meat speckled jaws of Hell to open upbeneath the floor and swallow all these lifeless marketing representatives,including yourself. If only God showed mercy.

Imagine you’re aguy. Imagine there is a pretty girl watching this same thing in this same room.Long high heeled legs, blue jeans, and a nice enough shirt to pass for businesscasual among a bunch of old overweight men. Nobody questioned the blue jeans.Between the smile, the eyes, and the laugh she could have worn a poncho andnobody would have blinked. The laugh sealed it. A laugh like a woman about tosprout her hidden wings and fly home.

She giggled a lot inthe theater but we had a good time. We quit our jobs and moved into a bananapeel yellow Winnebago. We drove and lived for a long time in big places. AMidwest town enveloped us. We started a business, Wreckords and More. Ourdaughter was beautiful. She looked like Audrey Hepburn at ten years old.

“Shotgun,” her dadsaid to me with a grin in a white tuxedo. I chuckled because that’s whatmarried men do. I remember our daughter trying on her mom’s jeans and likingthem because they were retro. She went to an expensive college with lots ofbrick buildings. We moved to the coast in a white cottage with a blue door. Ipainted the door before we unloaded the truck. It smeared on my shirt when wemoved the couch in. We started a new business. All You Can Read, a usedbookstore. We had beautiful chairs. Beautiful dark wicker chairs. Her legs barebeneath a polka dot skirt. Veined the way black streaks run through whitemarble statues of goddesses. She hands me a glass of water with half a lemonslice floating on top and smiles.

Stop imagining. Thepresentation is over. We stand. We walk down the stairs.

“Excuse me,” I say,“Would you like to see a movie?

A Powerful Story

A man and a young teenage boy checked into a hotel and were shown to their room. The receptionist noted the quiet manner of the guests and the pale appearance of the boy. Later, the man and boy ate dinner in the hotel restaurant. 

The staff again noticed that the two guests were very quiet and that the boy seemed disinterested in his food. 

After eating, the boy went to his room and the man went to ask the receptionist to see the manager. The receptionist initially asked if there was a problem with the service or the room, and offered to fix things, but the man said that there was no problem of the sort and repeated his request. 

When the manager appeared, he took him aside and explained that he was spending the night in the hotel with his fourteen-year-old son, who was seriously ill, probably terminally so. The boy was very soon to undergo therapy, which would cause him to lose his hair. They had come to the hotel to have a break together and also because the boy planned to shave his head, that night, rather than feel that the illness was beating him. The father said that he would be shaving his own head too, in support of his son. 

He asked that staff be respectful when the two of them came to breakfast with their shaved heads. 

The manager assured the father that he would inform all staff and that they would behave appropriately. 

The following morning the father and son entered the restaurant for breakfast. There they saw the four male restaurant staff attending to their duties, perfectly normally, all with shaved heads. 

No matter what business you are in, you can help people and you can make a difference. 

Please take a moment to like and share this message. 

Three Simple Rules

Once there was a rich man in Thailand. His name was Chulong. He was a very rich man. Yet he wanted more riches, more money. 

One day he was walking in his garden. He saw a strange bird in a bush. It was very small. But it had very beautiful and colorful features. Its voice was also very sweet. Chulong had never seen such a bird in his life. He slowly went near the bush unseen. He caught the bird. Now the bird began to speak. 

“Why have you caught me?" the bird asked. 

“I want to make money. I can sell you for a big amount," replied Chulong. 

“But you are already rich. Why do you want more?" asked the bird. 

“Because I want to become richer and richer," replied Chulong. 

“But do not dream of making money through me!" said the bird. It further added, “You can not sell me. Nobody will buy me, because, in imprisonment, I lose my beauty and my sweet voice." Then it slowly turned into a black bird. 

The beautiful features were now looking like the feathers of a crow. 

Chulong hopes of making money were shattered. He said angrily, “I will kill you, and I will eat your meat." 

“Eat me! I am so small. You will not get any meat out of me," replied the bird. 

Chulong could not answer. The bird then suggested, “Well set me free. In return I shall teach you three simple but useful rules." 

“What is the use of the rules? I want only money," said Chulong. He was irritated. 

“But these rules can profit you greatly," added the bird. 

“Profit me! Really? Then I shall set you free. But how can I trust you? You may fly away," said Chulong. 

“I give you my word. And I always keep my word," said the bird. 

Chulong wanted to take a chance. He released the bird. It flew up at once. Then it sat on the branch of a tree. Its color started changing. It became beautiful again. 

Chulong asked, “Now teach me the rules." 

“Certainly," said the bird. 

Then it added, “The first rule is Never Believe everything others say. The second rule is Never be sad about something you do not have. The third rule is Never throw away what you have in your hand." 

“You silly bird," shouted Chulong. And he added, “These three rules are known to every one. You have cheated me." 

But the bird said, “Chulong, just sit down for a while. Think about all your actions of today. You had me in your hands, but you threw me away (released me). You believed all that I said. And you are sad about not having me. The rules are simple. But you never followed them. Now do you see the value of the rules?" so saying the bird flew away and disappeared from his sight. 

Once upon a time a farmer, Gopi, lived in a village. He had few acres of land. One hot afternoon, the poor farmer was digging his field. All of a sudden, his spade hit something. Then he continued his digging. “It is a big metal pot," said Gopi. It was big enough to boil rice for more than hundred people. “It does not seem to be of any use to me. I will dig deeper. May be I will find something else," thought Gopi. He continued to dig. 

After he had dug for a long time, Gopi felt tired. “It is of no use. There is nothing in this field" he thought. Then at once, he threw the spade into the pot in frustration and sat under a tree to take rest for a while. 

After a while, when he got up to leave, he could not believe his eyes. There were one hundred spades in the pot. “This is a magical pot. I will put this mango inside the pot and see what happens," Gopi thought. Then Gopi put a mango into the pot. To his astonishment, he found one hundred mangoes in the pot. Gopi carried the pot to his home and kept in a secret place so that no one would become aware of it. 

After that, he put many things in that and everything became hundred folds. With that pot, he became a rich man. The King came to know of the pot and its whereabouts. The King was curious to know about it and he was a greedy King. “I want to find out the secret of the magical pot. If it is valuable, it should be in the King treasury," the King thought. Then at once, the King ordered his men to bring the farmer and his pot. 

When the magic pot was brought to the King’s chamber, he did not know what to do. The King thought, “Let me see what is there inside this pot which makes this pot so magical?" He peered inside. Inadvertently, he slipped and fell inside the pot. When he climbed out of the magic pot, he was shocked to find that there were one hundred Kings. 

All the kings then started to climb the throne. They fought among themselves and died. The magic pot lay in the King’s treasury. “The foolish King took away the magic pot from me out of curiosity and eventually he died. This magic pot has killed the King himself," said the farmer and he to be safe left the magic pot at the treasury of the King itself. 

My Best Friend is a Book

"My best friends are books." It's the sort of thing a lonely person might have on a t-shirt. For me it's true. My best friend is a book.

Before she was a book my best friend was my wife. She was smart and funny and energetic and beautiful until she became ill. Then she was weak and fragile and listless and dying.

One day there was a pamphlet on the table in her hospital room. The front said, "Preserve your loved one after death in a very special book." I assumed it was some sort of scrapbook maybe. Like a baby book for an adult full of pictures and facts and quotes that you provide. A layout and printing company. Nothing more.

But I was wrong.

As I read the brochure it talked about a device that would be attached to the patient's chest, just over her heart. At the moment of her death it would collect her soul. The company would then transfer the soul to a book, which would be delivered in 4-6 weeks after my loved one's passing.

I complained to the nurse about someone leaving joke literature in patient rooms. She assured me that wasn't a joke. Her voice cracked a bit when she said she wished it had been an option when her mom died.

I did some research. The company had great Yelp reviews. Even better than the pizza place that we thought was perfect but was always having its rating pulled down by the occasional 2 star review because "It took a long time to get our food." It's made to order pizza, people. It's not going to be instantaneous.

Even with glowing reviews and the word of the nurse the book thing seemed like a scam, but as the weeks went on and my wife became more and more frail I got desperate for any hope of holding on to her.

I stuck the apparatus on her chest with some special tape. I asked the doctor if that would be a problem. I thought he'd laugh at me, but he was completely serious when he told me those things are getting pretty common.

The day my wife died I wasn't even thinking about the little thing on her heart that was supposed to capture her soul for the sake of a book until the nurse handed it to me. I almost didn't call to have it picked up. With my wife now gone a book seemed trivial.

They called me.

When they came they asked if I wanted a hard copy book or an electronic one. I said electronic. My phone is always with me. If this book turned out to be all that was promised it seemed like something I would want to always have with me too.

I was warned that I would only get one book. That no additional copies could ever be made. I was barely listening, just staring at the little thing that had been on my wife's heart, wondering what could be inside it, wondering what sort of book this would be.

When I got the book about the month later I started casually browsing but that quickly turned to intense reading. I read her every moment I could.

You know how when you read a really great book the characters start to feel real, almost like you know them, like what you are reading is really happening? The book is like that but more intense because I do know the character. She is my wife and reading this book that is not quite fiction, not quite fact is like watching her. Like being with her.

The book brought my wife back to life.

That was five years ago and now I see my folly.

I'm on my third phone since then. I can move the book from phone to phone, but there are no technical updates. Each new phone, each updated operating system puts the book at risk. It is already getting glitchy. It locks up or the screen goes dark. It takes longer and longer to open.

One of these days the book will no longer be readable. One of these days the spinning hourglass will just keep spinning. One of these days my wife, my best friend, will die again.

- Kim Z Dale

麦老每天晚上陪你5分钟，与你分享分感化心灵的英语故事。关注“麦老”公众号，有更多你想要的。

麦老每天晚上陪你5分钟，与你分享分感化心灵的英语故事。关注“麦老”公众号，有更多你想要的。

麦老每天晚上陪你5分钟，与你分享分感化心灵的英语故事。关注“麦老”公众号，有更多你想要的。