Change 1

A Penny for Change, Part 1: Change

By Amber E. Rookstool
Penny for your thoughts? He had asked.
And I ignored him.
Hes homeless and asking for what I think, well I despise bums, begging for money, for
food, from hardworking men and women. Why couldnt he know he was going bankrupt,
jobless, moneyless. I mean isnt it easy? To know when you are about to lose everything: your
house, your money, your kids, your wife, your family? Did he not have anyone who would care
for him? There are thousands of homeless shelters. Why was he on this corner? On this street? In
this city? Where I live?
My father was like him. Thank goodness my mother left him when she did! She told me a
story of how wealthy my father had been. We were royalty! And he had to ruin it by leaving her
one night. No explanation. No note. Nothing. He sent letters now and then telling us he was on a
mission for humanity, but we ignored him, and his father, my grandfather, disowned him, and
gave me the inheritance with the words: dont waste your fortune.
So, No, I said to the bum. No, I will not waste a dollar, a quarter, or a penny to tell you
my thoughts.

I thought about him all that day. And on my way home, he asked me again, Penny for
your thoughts?
I walked on, saving my tongue and my money.

Change 2

A few weeks later, I saw him again, asking another sucker for a penny for his thoughts.
Instead of walking on, he sat down next to the man and said, First, a penny for your thoughts.
And he gave the man a warm cup of coffee.
I kept walking, shaking my head.

On my way home, the man was still talking, but this time, a crowd of five men
surrounded him. I peeked around to see if he had died. No. He was telling an embellished story
about a man, a rich man, who fell to poverty on purpose. I kept walking.

By the next day, he was telling another crowd, and those five people from yesterday were
repeating the tale. At my work, he was the talk of the office.
I burst in a rampage, questioning how a bum, as dirty and dumb, as he, could be
mentioned in a place as prestigious as Net Lighting Co. One of my co-workers replied telling me
the bums name is Sydney, and he had a kid before he left him for a modest lifestyle, and now he
was trying to find him.
And why should I care, I yelled, perhaps a little too frantic.
The whole work room was staring at me.
Because his son is named Rahul.

I walked out. I didnt care. So what if that was my name, but its not anymore. My name
is Paul. Rahul was a child abandoned by his father, raised by his grandfather and mother, trained
as a business man, the man my grandfather had hoped my father would have been. But he left us,
so I stepped up. And so Paul, the success, was born, and in no way related to the failure.

Change 3

Walking down the street, a stranger approached me, Are you Rahul?
No. I did not stop.
Two more people walked up asking, Is your name Rahul? I ignored them and kept
walking.
It seemed I was trapped in a vortex of people scrambling around, trying to find a missing
boy who did not exist. I laughed at the hysteria. And kept walking.

For a few weeks, people still talked about the man and his lost boy, but soon the man
disappeared, and within a few months everybody forgot, and my life went on as normal. Until
one day, a man looking vaguely familiar approached me while I ate lunch in the park.
A penny for your thoughts, he asked.
I looked him up and down. He was clean, dressed, and shaved presentably. And I only
know one person who uses that phrase.
Youre that bum, so no.
I am not a bum. I am a man. And a father.
I do not care.
How about I give you a penny for my thoughts?
You do not have a penny to spare, and I do not care.
Rahul.
No.
RahulRahul, you know who I am.
No, no I do not.

Change 4

My name is Sydney.
No. No it is not.
I had a wife. Her name was Sarah.
So. There are thousands of Sarahs in the world.
But there is only one Rahul who is my son.
No. I do not want to hear it.
But he named himself
No. Stop. Stop it.
He calls himself Paul.
No, leave me alone, old man. You do not deserve to wear the clothes you wear, you do
not deserve the words you speak, you do not deserve the thoughts in my head, you do not
deserve any other name besides bum!
I walked away. He called after me, and I kept walking.

Time passed, and the bum walked the streets, dressed in casual clothes. He tried to talk to
me and I ignored him.
You are bitter, he said. You are cold. You suffer. Please let me tell you a story, son.
No.
Rahul?
My name is Paul. I work at Net Lighting Co. My father died when I was little. He does
not exist to me. I am wealthy. I have a girlfriend. I have a house. I have everything I could ever
desire. I do not need an old bum to tell me who I am or what I am feeling. I do not need a story.

Change 5

But do you know who needs a story? A little boy crying for his father in the middle of the
night because he is scared of the monster under his bed and the skeletons in his closet and he
knows his mother is scared too, so he sits in the dark, wondering why his father would abandon
him, why he would abandon his mother, why he would leave them behind, and only send them
postcards and updates, saying he was searching for something. Why? Why? Why, would he?
I paused and choked back the bitter tears.
Well the little boy in the dark was searching for something, too. He was searching for a
father who would be by his side and tell him a story. Just one story.
Paul.
I walked away. And I kept on walking. And I walked into the road. And I walked into a
car.

I was a young man. A wealthy man. My father homeschooled me and

spoiled me. He taught me to be a business man and he gave me all my
wishes and desires. He introduced me to a beautiful woman, who I married
right away, and we had a beautiful son. It was a good life. I was happy.
But I lived my life in the mansion. And I wanted to leave. I left the
palace five times. The first time, I saw an old man. I had never seen an old
man. It was hard to look at him. He struggled to walk and breathe. For the
first time, I realized how youthful I was and how wasteful I was. The second
time I left, I witnessed a sick man. He was suffering. I had never seen a sick
man before, but he looked so deathly, lacking life. The third time I was out, I
saw a parade of cars, my driver told me it was a funeral precession. There is

Change 6

a dead man in that car, he told me. I had no clue what it was like to have
someone die. My mother was dead, but I was a week old when she did.
These three sights made me realize how much suffering was in the
world. I had lived my whole life in a bubble, and once I discovered reality, I
had to find answers. But I did not know how to find them.
The fourth time I went out, I found a method. I saw a homeless,
travelling man. He carried no possessions and ate scraps of food to survive.
He lived ascetically. He would meditate for hours, questioning my same
questions. So I decided that was my mission. To live like him, study like him,
and find the answer to why people suffer.
So the fifth time I left, I left all my money, my possessions, my family,
my wife, my son, my love, and my life. And I went on a mission to find
answers in nature. I became a wilderness man. Or as you call me, a bum.
I hated leaving my family behind, but I did not regret it; I was on a
mission. I lived ascetically, in deprivation; I meditated; I did yoga; I prayed.
One day, I was on the verge of death, I sat on the side of the road and a
woman approached me. She offered me a granola bar, and that granola bar
saved my life. I learned to live in moderation. I realized I did not need to
starve myself.
A few weeks later, while meditating under a willow tree, it dawned on
me why I suffered, why I was dissatisfied; it was because I desired too much.
Son, Rahul, I hope you remember that. Do not live in desire because
your life will always be changing and you will never be happy. I love you, son.

Change 7

I woke up feeling something cold and metal in my hand. I lifted my hand to find a penny.
I remembered, as I gained consciousness, a vague whisper of the story my father told me. I
decided I would forgive him.
The following week, I walked to work, waiting to hear Penny for your thoughts? But I
did not hear it. Instead, I found Sydney asleep, laying on his right side.
I walked over to him and said, Penny for your thoughts, and held out the penny he gave
while I was in the hospital. But he did not reply.
Sydney, I said. Sydney, a penny?
No reply.
Father.
Nothing.
Dad?
I ran in circles, trying to get someone to help me. Tears in my eyes. Panicked.
He was dead. The father who died when I was little, who lived once again, died before I
could forgive him.

Time moved a little slower after that. My girlfriend dumped me when I sold the
penthouse to rent a smaller apartment. I started donating the extra funds to homeless shelters.
And I called myself Rahul again.
Sometimes, if a stranger is moving too fast, Ill ask him, Penny for your thoughts? Of
course, hell look at me as if I am crazy, but every now and then, once in a while, a person will
tell me, and Ill give him a penny. And if he asks me, Ill tell him the enlightening story of a man
on a quest for answers, how he discovers that dissatisfactionsuffering, comes from desire.

Change 8

And hell thank me, give me a penny, and well move on, and maybe, just maybe, hell change,
too.