One cold, rainy night as they sat
in their chairs in front of the fire talking and drinking hot coca, they heard
someone rapping at the door. They opened it and an old man with long stringy
grey hair, and missing quite a few teeth entered.
They offered him hot coca and a
place in front of the fire. They noticed he was clutching an old, ordinary
looking wooden box. "Excuse me sir, what is that you are holding?" asked the
woman politely.
"Ah, so good of you to ask, this,
is the fortune and fate of many,"
The couple, bewildered questioned what this
was supposed to mean.
"Well, I will tell you, this box
is over 200 years old, and it has moved from person to person, it has never
stopped because of no consideration of others. If you walk into any woods in the
world, and find the cresent moon stone, and bring it back to me, then when I
open this box, a million dollars will have appeared and it will be all yours.
But the catch is, if you take the million dollars, someone you don't know will
die."
The man was hesitant to do this,
because someone would die, even though it would be someone they didn't know, he
still thought it a terrible thing to do. But his wife bullied him into it, "Oh,
it'll probably be some homeless person on the verge of death anyway." she
said.
So he went out into the woods,
and searched aimlessly for hours, until he found a smoothe stone, in the shape
of a cresent moon.
When he got back home he
presented it to the old man. "Are you sure this is what you want? Remember,
someone you don't know will die,"
"Yes, this is what I want."
The old man opened the box, and
there just as he had said, was the million dollars. The woman snatched it and
immediately began to count, when she was satisfied, the old man picked up the
box and said, "I'd better be off,"
He opened the door, and stepped
out into the rain, and before he closed the door, turned to face the couple and
said. "I'd better be off to give this box to someone who doesn't know
you."
THE END