Items of Joy by Rachel Johnson (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

So many times in our life we hear phrases that tell us that anything is possible, never isn’t a word, and so on and so forth. One of Nike’s phrases is, “Impossible is nothing.” And in the movie, A Cinderella Story, “Anything is possible if you just believe.” All throughout our lives we are told to believe in anything and everything, then we grow up, and we get put in the crazy house for claiming to believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Clause. The only thing that isn’t considered crazy by most of the world is religion. People in general can’t seem to understand how there could be more to life than what we see, than what is right in front of us. And even then, we rarely see that. If you think about it, we usually can find sense in anything that is given to us. Take simple math for example. If we were taught at a young age that one plus one equals one, we could understand that. We could find logic and sense to it. But now that we have been taught what other people have discovered, that one plus one equals two, we couldn’t fathom anything different. We couldn’t live with a green sky instead of blue. However, if we had lived our whole lives with a green sky, we couldn’t understand a blue sky. Things can be whatever which way God chooses, either we accept that and not faint at the thought of fairies or mermaids being real, or we put other people in the crazy house. It’s your choice.

Chapter 1 - Thomas

However, there are places where people believe in things we have never even imagined. Places where people believed in things so much, that they were able to see them with their own eyes. You have to believe before you can see. It all started one day when a boy was supposed to be doing his homework, but wasn’t, as usual. The thing that wasn’t usual about this day was that instead of playing with his friends, he was standing by a brook that wasn’t too far from his house. Anyone walking by and happening to see him would think he was crazy. He was hanging on to a willow branch and leaning as far as he could into the brook. His nose was just inches from the water’s surface. But what was most amazing was what was going on inside the boy’s head. Wonder and excitement were flowing through him like electric sparks. Though no one could tell by how he acted. Other than his strange position, he was completely calm and normal. The wonder came to his mind when he saw something in the water. This item of joy was probably just the sun reflecting off of a stray piece of glass at the floor of the brook. But it amazed him and opened his mind to things he would’ve ignored otherwise.
For about seven years, from the time he was nine to when he turned sixteen, he found these items of joy almost everywhere he went. Even in the trash. Then one day, his best friend told him that he should grow up cause there won’t always be items of joy in life. The boy didn’t take much notice of his friend’s remark, but it still stung him. It seemed to take a little bit of magic out of his daily pleasures. Then it completely died away. He looked everywhere, but he couldn’t find even one item of joy. He had been mentally robbed of reason in life. Without them, life was dull, average, and disappointing. From the time he was seventeen to when he turned twenty-one, one could say that period of time was his own personal Dark Ages. He barely finished high school, and didn’t even make an effort at a college education.
When he turned twenty-two, he was shot by a policeman that was new at his job. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he was mistaken for a criminal that had recently robbed some jewelry stores. So when this new policeman thought he would be famous for capturing the criminal, he acted without thinking. It is so sad when people have to suffer for other people’s mistakes. But one thing that wasn’t as sad was that this boy got to see one more of his items of joy before he died. As the bullet sped through the air towards him, he was amazed at the beauty of how it flew. It made him imagine flying through the sky. And it gave him peace in a way.
When he was found, (he was found because the policeman was too much of a coward to admit his mistake, so he ran away) he was found with a smile on his face. Not a mocking smile or a mean smile, but a peaceful smile and a forgiving smile that if the policeman had seen it, he would have known that this boy felt no anger or resentment toward him.

Chapter 2 - Christie

Sadly, there are people that don’t see these items of joy as easily. Some people can go through their whole lives without seeing one; others don’t see them till they are 50 or 60. This is when they get scared of death and start to appreciate life. But there is another scenario, where someone sees an item of joy early on. However, these people had to go through strange times first, like a young girl, not quite a teen but not considered a child. This was a hard time in her life because she wasn’t sure of a lot of things.
Only people who have experienced it can truly understand what this girl was thinking and experiencing. Lately, her mom seemed to get mad at her for no reason at all. But what she didn’t understand was that she was the one being annoying and irresponsible. From her point of view, she was a perfect angel, and it was her mom that was annoying. It frustrated her more than anything.
Then one day, she must have got up on the right side of the bed, cause she was different. She made her bed and cleaned her room without anyone telling her to do so. And what she found out that day was the benefits of going the extra mile. Not just doing extra chores or more homework, but doing what she had with a good attitude. And it was during that day, that she saw her first item of joy.
She was walking home from the bus stop when on the road she saw a tiny bead. It was clear and sparkling in the sun. Then, to her surprise, a cat came and tried to eat the bead. At first she felt like she should stop the cat, but no words or actions escaped her body. Because the strangest thing was happening, the cat was growing wings. Also, it seemed to get more and more translucent. Then, just when she thought it couldn’t get weirder, the cat flew into the sky and into the sun. First, she thought she had been dreaming. Second, she knew she couldn’t have because amazingly the cat had dropped the bead into her hand as it flew away.
And so there it was, flickering in the sunlight, as if nothing had happened. She wasn’t sure whether or not she should scream. In the end, she decided not to because it was too late. As she walked home she repeated the incident in her mind over and over again. You see, the thing that is different about the boy’s items of joy and the girl’s is that the girl’s items of joy are the ones that put people in the crazy house. So for a while she just lingered in thought. For nights she would lay in bed pondering over what she had seen. Pondering over whether or not she was crazy.
Then one night, just before she was about to fall asleep, she heard a tap on her window. Quietly she crept over to her windowsill and opened it. To her surprise and wonder, she found the cat there, sitting on her roof.
“My name is Amithsera,” it purred. “I have come to ask you a very important question.” Now the girl knew for certain that she hadn’t made up the story, but strangely it wasn’t comforting.
“What?” she finally managed to choke out.
“If you died at this moment, where would you go?”
“Um… How am I supposed to know?” she asked.
“True, you humans never know anything. Well, I guess there’s only one thing to do.”
And that was the end, the girl as we know her was gone, vanished into thin air, never to be seen again by any human. However, the story isn’t about the people on earth, but rather the girl, and what she saw and came to know. If someone had been walking past her window as she vanished, they probably wouldn’t have seen anything because it was so dark. However, on this night, it was rather light because it was a full moon. And let’s just say that someone did walk past her window. Or perhaps, floated past, which is the situation that she was in at the moment.
“Will you hurry up?” growled a rather impatient voice.
“I’m coming, I just have a new arrival,” said her flying, killing, cat friend.
“Oh no you didn’t,” the strange voice replied. “Arazith is going to kill you.”
“Well, isn’t that kind of hard for him to do?” And instantly they were laughing. However, the “new arrival” didn’t quite understand what was so funny. She also didn’t understand why they were being so loud.
Someone is bound to hear them sooner or later, she thought. It’s the middle of the night!
One of the many things that she didn’t know was that these people or animals were in fact, ghosts and no one could hear them. The only reason she could hear Amithsera was because he had let her hear him. Another thing that she didn’t know was that the strange voice was a boy, in his early twenties, who had recently died because of a misunderstanding. This boy was also the boy who saw shiny objects, or “items of joy” at the bottom of lakes and his name was Thomas. Now, all she had was time. Time to live and take people from one phase of life to the other. Time was really all there was left for her. After she figured out who these ghosts were and where she was and why she was, she realized that her life alive and her life dead were almost the same. The only difference was that in the second one, she wasn’t confused or frustrated.
But it was strange, it wasn’t right, there was something going on that shouldn’t. Or someone was stopping something from