THE ROTTEN CHICK

THE ROTTEN CHICK

Once upon a time, a little boy named Johnny Brill was running around their garden, kicking a ball. As he kept chasing the ball, a baby chick suddenly left its mother and ran under his foot and he stepped on it. The chick died immediately.

Upon seeing what had happened, the boy began to scream and cry loudly; he was in a state of shock. While he was screaming, the sound of his voice drew the attention of his mother who rushed to his aid.

When the mother asked what the problem was, the boy pointed at the dead chick and cried, panicking.

"I killed it! I stepped on the poor chick! I hurt it so much! The mother hen is going to look for her child! I'm a bad person!"

His mother quickly consoled him and told him it was merely an accident. However, the boy wouldn't stop wailing and hating himself. He was filled with so much guilt and remorse for what he had done.

Again, the mother said to him,

"Don't worry, we all make mistakes, so forget about it and move on. You have to forgive yourself."

No matter how much the mother tried to calm her son down, she could not stop him from being devastated. It seemed he would never be able to forgive himself as he cried even more, thus making her very confused about what to do.

The confused mother thought for a moment, and then she said to the little boy,

"Okay... I'll tell you what you can do to bring the dead chick back to life. Get a small box and place some sand or sawdust on the bottom of it. Then put the dead chick in the box and cover it. Wherever you go, take the box along with you. At least once a day, apologize to the chick, telling it you're very sorry for killing it. Then after about three days, it will wake up and you will take it back to its mother."

The boy suddenly stopped crying, picked up the dead chick and went to do what his mother had told him. For hours and hours, he kept the box close beside him, apologizing to the dead chick.

However, three days later, the boy noticed a strong odor coming from the box. When he opened it, he was surprised to see that the dead chick was rotten and decaying. He ran to his mother and exclaimed,

"It smells, it smells! The chick smells horrible! I can barely breathe around it!"

The mother paused for a moment, then placed an arm around the boy's shoulder and whispered into his ears,

"Listen, son, the day you accidentally killed the chick, I told you to forgive yourself and let go, but you would not. So, I decided to make you carry the chick around with you until it begins to rot and smell bad. In this life, nobody's perfect. We make mistakes. We say wrong things. We do wrong things. We learn, we grow and we move on! But if we don't forgive ourselves, the guilt feeling becomes a heavy burden and will bring disturbance in our life. If we all dwell on our mistakes and carry it around with us, it will smell like a rotten chick and will make us feel very uncomfortable. We'd all be miserable, and life is about being happy. It is important to know that when we forgive ourselves, we are giving ourselves the gift of freedom. We are free from the chains of our past and we can live happy and fulfilling lives."

Thank You for reading!