Lucius And His Dream

A long time ago, in a country far far away in the east, there was once a dreamer teenage boy, named Lucius. Not only was Lucius a dreamer, he was also suffering low self esteem and found himself always the butt of jokes at school.

Other kids at school would tease him about his dreams. They would ask what was his last dream about, or, who did he dream at some instances and what did he do about it? Partly, Lucius was also to blame because he would open up odd stories about his dreams to his friends, and his friends would spread the words around the school. That was how he ended up as the butt of jokes around his little village.

Somehow, this had affected him, he developed low self esteem. He would rather stay home alone than saw his friends. He would play alone and fell asleep in boredom.

Lucius' father was not at home during the day. He was a labor at a nearby junkyard and he would come home in the afternoons drunk. Lucius' mother was selling fruits and vegetables in the nearby marketplace during the day and was always very busy picking and harvesting fruits and vegetables every afternoon, so she could sell them in the morning. Lucius was the only child in the family, so he was a born loner. He would go to school during the day and after school, he would spend the rest of the day always daydreaming.

One morning, Lucius opened up to his father that he had a dream. His father was dismissive and would not listen. Still, Lucius opened up that if his father could accompany him, because he dreamed that at the left side end of the bridge, five kilometers away, someone left a little black book for him to read. But his father was rediculous, a skeptic and not a fan of Lucius. He rediculed Lucius, saying that if he were a believer of dreams, he too would argue that last night, he too had a dream...he dreamed that Lucius would one day would take them out of the misery that they were in!

Lucius didn't insist anymore, but undeterred, determined and intrigued, he set out to walk five kilometers to the bridge. Though along the way, he met some of the boys who made fun of him. He kept quiet to himself, didn't say a word, otherwise they would poke fun at him.

After a couple of hour walk, he got to the bridge, long and thick bushes confronted him at both ends of the bridge. He figured out, his dream was telling him, he would find the little black book at the left side end of the bridge, coming from the direction of his home. So he started the big task of clearing and rummaging through the thick bushes. There, almost halfway covered by dirt, incredibly, he found the little black book of his dream!

He opened the book, to his surprise, 279 pages in all were blank. But in the last page, at the 280th page, there was barely a readable, faint hand writing in pencil, almost erased by time and dirt as this black book was half buried in the ground and God knows what, who, when it was written.

As Lucius was trying to read the handwriting, he was able to figure out what it was trying to say...it said, "because you listened to your dream, you have found the answer...if you walk facing the sun, 250 steps away from here, by the bank of the river, there I buried it."

Lucius, the dream believer, proceeded to walk and counted his steps. He got to the bank of the river, with bare hands he scooped up the soft and muddy top soil and used a stick to dig deeper. Underneath the earth at about three feet deep, he felt, saw and opened the laid very old and dirty casket full of gold and treasure. He thought it would surely amount much much more than the twenty thousand dollars that he initially dreamt about in his previous dream.

Thus, in the end, his father's dream that Lucius would one day take them out of their misery was also fulfilled.

Moral of the story, listen to your dream. (Author: Danilo Cerbo Laygan)