29/08/2025
The Little Candle in the Dark
In a small, forgotten village, where the nights were darker than the days, lived a boy named Samuel. He was only eight, yet life had already stolen so much from him. His father had died before he could even remember his face, and his mother, the only light in his world, had passed away when he was just five. Since then, the boy wandered the dusty paths of the village, barefoot, hungry, and invisible to the world.
His clothes were torn and faded, his small hands rough from picking scraps to survive. At night, while other children were wrapped in blankets, listening to bedtime stories, Samuel curled up under the wooden stalls in the marketplace. His lullaby was the whistle of the cold wind, and his pillow was his own arm.
But what made Samuel different was not his pain—it was his heart. Despite having nothing, he carried a smile that could melt the heaviest sorrows. He would give away the little bread he found to an even hungrier child, or share his ragged blanket with a shivering stray dog. The villagers whispered, “He has nothing, yet he gives more than anyone.”
One winter night, when the cold bit harder than usual, Samuel sat by a broken lamp post, hugging his knees to stay warm. He looked at the stars, whispering to the mother he missed so dearly:
"Mama, if you can see me, don’t worry. I’ll be strong, just like you taught me. I’ll keep my heart kind, even if the world is not kind to me."
Tears rolled down his cheeks, but in his chest, a little fire burned—the fire of hope. He dreamed of going to school one day, of having a small home where no child would sleep hungry, and of becoming the kind of person his parents would be proud of.
Samuel was poor, hungry, and alone in the world. But inside him lived something richer than gold: a spirit unbroken, a candle in the dark.
And sometimes, that candle was enough to light the way—not just for himself, but for others too.
