A Golden Staircase

When the man awoke he found himself as a young boy. He went out and played in the fresh morning air. He had a lot of fun while he played. At around eight he went in to have his breakfast. After breakfast he found that he had changed into a young man.

The young man went out and started his day’s work. He built a barn, and it took him the whole morning. He worked half-naked in the blinding sun, and the sweat ran in rivulets down his back. It was hard work, but just after mid-day he had completed the task, and the barn stood finished. It was a solid and sturdy barn, and it would give many years of good service.

The man went into his house to have his lunch, and to rest a bit after the morning’s work. But soon after his afternoon meal, he went out to work again. Now he was an older man, and it was time to harvest the crop. He took his sickle off the hook, where it hung on the wall, and then went down to the fields to reap the harvest. His sickle flashed backward and forward as he harvested the grain, and his back was bent whiled he toiled. He worked right through the whole afternoon, cutting away at the crop, until he had harvested it all.

He then collected the bales of wheat, and stored them in the barn that he had built that morning. It was a plentiful harvest, and the small barn was packed with it to its capacity. Satisfied with a good day’s work, the man retired to his home for supper and a bit of rest, before the evening’s task began. He was even older now, and it was now time for him to write his message.

He wrote from the early evening, right through the midnight hours, into the darkness of morning, and still he wrote. The lamp burnt steadily on his desk, and it illuminated the curtain and window frame from inside. And still he wrote, and still he wrote. He wrote seven books full of wonderful tales through that long, dark night, until at last his work was done. The first cock crowed in the barnyard outside, as the first streaks of pink sunlight burst over the distant mountains.

Then the man, who was old now, went over to open the window, because he knew it was time for him to go home. Outside the window he saw the Golden Staircase winding its way ever upward into the heavens, where his true home lay. He climbed gently out of the window, and got onto the golden stairs. Then he started to climb them, and left his work behind him.

Slowly the old man climbed that Golden Staircase with joy in his heart, because his work was done, and at last, he was going home.