The Bridge of the Heart.

In a small village, where the houses still leaned over each other over the streets, there lived a boy whom everyone knew as the Silent One.

Not because he didn't like to talk — but because he felt that no one would really listen to him.

Every day he walked across the same bridge that stood in the middle of the village and led over the stream.

Under the bridge, the water flowed slowly, as if it were guarding everything that people didn't dare to say.

One day, when it was already dusk, the boy noticed an old man sitting on the railing of the bridge.

In the man's hand was a small canvas with a half-finished painting on it.

The boy stopped and looked at him in silence.

The man suddenly spoke:

"You know, son… I'm painting this bridge."

The boy nodded.

"It's a beautiful bridge," he finally said.

"That's it," the old man replied. – But what is truly special about it is what is not visible.

The boy frowned.

– What is it that is not visible?

The old man put down his brush with a smile.

– That this bridge connects much more than two shores.

It connects human hearts.

Because everyone who crosses it takes something with them and leaves something behind.

The boy sat down next to him.

– I don't think anyone would leave anything for me, he said quietly.

– You are wrong, – the man replied. – Anyone who looks at you has already left something.

A thought, a feeling, a moment.

The world begins to connect with you when you first connect with it.

The boy was silent for a long time.

The stream flowed slowly beneath them, and the bridge seemed to breathe on its own.

– And what am I leaving here? – he finally asked.

The old man smiled at him.

– Your presence, my son.

Because sometimes the most we can give is:

that we are here.

We listen.

We feel.

The next day the boy went there again.

The man was no longer there.

Only the canvas lay at the foot of the bridge, with the half-finished painting on it — but something about it had changed.

On one side of the bridge stood a familiar figure: a boy who had just walked across it.

The boy smiled.

He felt his heart tremble softly, as if the bridge itself was calling him onward.

And from then on he was no longer "the silent one", but the one who knew: every person is a bridge, capable of connecting, because goodness is not a word, but a presence.