kwairyo

i feel like an old man today- so i wrote a story about one:

Down beneath the reeds in the Western Garden there lived an old man.
There he stooped beneath green pine trees and gathered their fallen brown needles for his winter tea.
Every day he would come and collect dry pine needles for his tea.
He said they were fine trees and there majesty was his only comfort in the cold winter months.
Deep into the winter the ground was barren for the fallen needles were all gone.
so the old man began to shake one of the trees violently, causing the live green needles to fall from its branches.
every day he would come and shake the trees to get new needles for his tea.
he even decided the fresh green needles were much finer than the dry brown needles.
one day the old man returned to the pine grove to find all the trees barren and dying.

On this day he found shiny black beatles were once there were pine needles and begged them to come home with him. The beatles though they were cold, refused.
The old man himself then felt a chill and thought it right that he should return home.
Soon his loneliness resolved itself in a forceful bitterness. He decided he should make a tea of those beatles.
While walking to the wooded grove he said to himself, "Soon I will return home with beatles and they will be my comfort during this cold day."
When he arrived he peered downwards, intent on the barren ground.
He lowered his body to the ground and began searching for the shiny black creatures.
With his nose only inches from the cold earth he searched.
From above it began to snow,
but still the old man searched.
Gradually the snow mounted and became a mighty storm.
But the old man never looked up.