One year on, Joseph Yam brings up to date his cyberfable.
At the same corner of Wall Street and Broadway in New York the two former Guards of Heaven, who a year before, on 16 March 2000, had become mortal again, met each other for the first time since. Seeing each other again, after what had happened on that day and at that place, was like a reunion after a lifetime apart. They almost burst into tears when they stumbled into each other. A lot had happened during the past year.
Despite the unusual coldness of this March day, they sat themselves on the pavement - that same pavement that had been covered with snow the March before - and exchanged their traumatic, but remarkably similar, experiences over the past year. They were now wearing less clothing than a year before, when they had been sent there to beg by the King of Heaven as punishment for taking a nap while on duty as Guards of Heaven. But they had become a lot more resistant to the cold weather, having been on the streets of New York throughout this particularly harsh winter. In any case, for some time now they had not been able to afford any decent warm clothing and were actually making do with the worn out quilted jackets they had brought with them when sent down from heaven. Their ragged jackets were about the only things they had left since their creations - two begging bowls, with "beggar.com" chalked on one and "e-begging" on the other - had fallen out of favour in the shop of curios called NASDAQ. They still had the original begging bowls they had brought from Heaven, which had in the hard months of winter proven to be quite handy on the streets of downtown New York.
Their begging bowls in front of them, they chatted busily with each other, distracted from time to time only by the clinking of pennies and dimes in their bowls, which prompted the automatic response of "thank you" and "may the King of Heaven bless you". They talked about the number of replicas of the begging bowls they had managed to sell at the initial public offers, when everybody had blindly scrambled for them, not bothering even to think what use they could be put to. The packaging of the products by the men in the pinstripe suits was just superb, wasn't it? And how many pages there were in the offer documents describing the potential for transforming their begging bowls into the most productive money making machines in the whole mortal world! Fantastic, wasn't it? And they had had their good times too, at least for a short while after the successful initial offer, when they were flush with money, even after paying the hefty packaging fees to the men in the pinstripe suits.
The transformation of begging bowls into money-making machines had been a dream, and each, being good natured (otherwise they would not have previously been appointed as Guards of Heaven) had worked hard to realise that dream. They had used the money to acquire other models of begging bowls, re-labelling them with the magic words "beggar.com" or "e-begging". But none of those acquisitions had turned into the money making machine of their dream. They had even tried rubbing all the begging bowls in the hope that one of them might turn out to be Aladdin's lamp in disguise. But the genie was nowhere to be seen. Not even a trace of smoke. Only the vapour from their perspiration and their warm breath, as the winter approached. The rest is history, but they both made their mark because their creations remained on the shelves in the NASDAQ shop of curios, and they are still there today.
The two ex-Guards continued to huddle together on the cold pavement and reminisced about the past year, and about the times they had enjoyed together as fellow Guards of Heaven. They were filled with remorse, with the shame of failing in their heavenly duties, and of having chosen to become mortals again. They wished that the King of Heaven could look kindly on them and, for old time's sake, give them a break from this miserable state. Or at least send them a plate of heavenly-tasting dim sum to fill their empty stomachs.
"Hot dogs!" "Fries!" A man pushing a mobile fast food stall approached, shouting with a rare operatic and authoritative voice. Distracted more by the voice than by the smell of frying frankfurters, the two beggars looked up and saw the familiar face. It was, indeed, the King of Heaven himself, wearing a robe with the words "heavenking.com" embroidered in gold on the front and "e-heavenking" on the back. Since falling down to earth from the stratosphere and cyberspace a year before, the King of Heaven had managed to start a mobile fast food stall business, selling "heavenking'" hot dogs up and down town. He now owned a chain of these mobile stalls and was making a decent living. On seeing his former subjects, he looked kindly on them and gave them each a "heavenking" hot dog free of charge. He also offered them the opportunity to join his business and man one of his mobile fast food stalls, which they gladly and gratefully accepted.
The Guard of Heaven who had loyally and obediently took his punishment a year ago as a beggar and returned to Heaven, having accumulated US$7.80 in pennies and dimes, and having fully repented, saw all this while on duty at the Heavenly Gate. He stole a smile and said to himself "Amen"!
Joseph Yam
29 March 2001
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