The Fool That You Knew Me To Be Yesterday Is Not The Person Standing In Front Of You Today - written by Alfred (a short story for kids)

Once upon a time there lived a little 12 year old boy named Ryan. He was a whole lot closer to 13 than 12, and he loved the fact his age was growing so fast. He only wished that it could increase. He was a lot taller than most kids his age and he loved to lie to people who didn’t know him real well that he was a much older in age than he actually was. He hated being looked at as kid or being called a kid. As far as he was concerned he was a big boy and he wanted to act and be treated like one.   

Ryan came from a well to do home. He had a loving single parent Mum and had no reason to complain about needing any material thing because she was rich.   Ryan and his Mum were only Christians but title but not from the heart.   

Ryan loved Hip Hop. He watched MTV in his room everyday and his Mum didn’t brother to talk to him. To her, he was just listening to music.   

Ryan happened to go to a school which for some reason had the rich, the middle class and even the poor in abundance at the same time. It wasn’t normal for a school to have that kind of blend where all 3 social classes where strongly represented but Ryan’s school had it.   

Even though Ryan belonged to a rich family he decided to make friends with some poor kids who loved and lived Hip Hop. They were cool because they were Hip Hop and Ryan just had to be among the cool kids, as far as he was concerned that was were he belonged.   When Ryan’s Mum found out about the kind of friends he’d been making, she tried to get him to stop being friends with them. To Ryan that just meant that she was trying to stop him from being cool. He wasn’t going to have that. He wasn’t going to stop being cool. Being cool and Hip Hop is who he is and if she is trying to take that alway from him, she is trying to make him not be himself. Ryan stood his ground and no matter what his Mum did, he was not going to leave his new friends. Things got so bad that he soon went head to head with his Mum and insulted her. He told her that she was old and mean as far as he was concerned. She just couldn’t understand.   Ryan and his friends soon begin to skip school, sneak into high school parties, freestyle on street corners and do other things that poor kids who are into Hip Hop do.   

Ryan’s Mum now had to take her relationship with God seriously. All that she could do now was pray. She had tried everything else that she knows to do and it only seemed to push him away.

One day, Ryan’s friends told him to come with them that they wanted to do something really cool and daring. They took him to a train track and told him that they are going to jump on bullet trains as the pass by at full speed just for fun. Whoever can stay on the train the longest would be crowned the winner of the game.   

At first Ryan and his friends had fun enjoying the thrill, the danger, and the excitement of jumping on bullet trains and holding on to the sides but things quickly go south when Ryan’s foot slips and he falls flat on the train tracks. Thankfully, he had tried to jump on the back end of the train and not the front end of it. I hate to think of what would have happened if he fell in-front of the train.   

All of Ryan’s friends ran away and abandoned him.   

Ryan was later seen lying unconscious on the train tracks before another bullet train could arrive, by a good samaritan who rushes to his aid and takes him to the hospital.   

After Ryan woke up in the hospital he knew who his true friends were. The scales had fallen off his eyes. He knew that his true friends weren’t the ones who suggested that he do something stupid and when things went wrong left him there to die. He now knew that choosing to listen to those kind of people over his Mum was pure foolishness.   

Ryan cried and begged his Mum for forgiveness. He also made a decision to take his walk with God more seriously. He was going to stop listening to Hip Hop too. From now it’s straight gospel blues, gospel rap, gospel R’n'B and traditional gospel for him. He was not going to have any of that MTV poison anymore.   

God had healed the relationship between Ryan and his Mum. He was going to be an obedient son and not a potential source of heart attack for his Mum.   

Later, when Ryan had recovered enough to go to school he ran into his old friends. They didn’t even ask him how he survived or said that they were glad he was alive, they just asked him if he would like to hang out with them.   

Ryan looked at them and said, “THE FOOL THAT YOU KNEW ME TO BE YESTERDAY IS NOT THE PERSON STANDING IN FRONT OF YOU TODAY.” 

THE END.