Friend with Golden Heart

“Friend with Golden Heart” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Sohom Das, Indian Public High School ,Ras Al Khaimah, UAE.

Friend with Golden Heart

Once upon a time in England, there lived two friends, Jack and Henry. Jack was born to a poor family while Henry was born to a rich businessman family.

One night (when jack was 10 years old), before Christmas he dreamt that Santa was giving gifts to the poor children and those children’s eyes were shining brightly in Joy of receiving gifts. That was true for him also. He was dreaming every time that he would get a gift on Christmas. But the poor chap! His dream was not becoming true since his birth. But he was a positive minded boy. So from that day onward, he wanted to be like Santa, he wanted to become a cause of others happiness. Next morning, he told his grand pa about his dream and asked him how to become rich. Grand pa explained that education is the only way to become rich as education gives golden key to increase sincerity and knowledge. So he started studying hard so that when he would grow up, he can earn lots of money which he would try to spend by giving among poor like him to bring their happiness at least for once. On the other hand, Henry was also kind hearted like Jack but was always showing off as his parents were rich. He lent pen or pencil or book to any poor classmate but his attitude told an unspoken word of proud which the receiver feel in the deep of his heart.

Many years passed. Both have completed their studies well. Henry inherited his father’s business. Jack worked hard and with his education and determination he started working in an office to gather more money. He had a plan to build a business empire. In the mean time, the World War – 1 had started and for that reason Jack and Henry’s family went far of places from the major cities where chances were more for air-strikes and settled there and started their business there.

One day they accidentally met each other in an airport. The war ended, they were going back to England. Both of them were overjoyed to back to their own city. So after landing in London, to mark the day, they went to their area for a walk together. They could not recognize their childhood place to that time.

As the World War had affected the area, they became very poor and afraid of war. Both felt bad about them. Their kind hearts started weeping. So Henry told to Jack “I want to see their happy face, I cannot bare anymore their gloomy faces, what you say?” As he said he distributed all wealth he had at that moment to him equally. But Jack went to the nearest nursery and bought some farming materials and gave them to them.

Then Henry asked “Why did you give them farming materials?”

Jack replied “Even if your wealth gets over they will never forget the of art earning in an honest and hardworking way.”

That day Henry understood that jack has more wealth than him, the wealth of rich Heart.