The Girl With Ten Diamonds (Treasury Of Feel-Good Stories Book 3)

Book summary

"The Girl With Ten Diamonds" explores the transformative journey of Samara Jones, a rebellious student grappling with her direction in life. Her unexpected encounter with a unique flock of silvery geese and their eccentric shepherd, along with his quirky friends, sets her on a path of self-discovery. This tale promises a blend of humor and heart, leading to an outcome that's as unexpected as it is enlightening.

Excerpt from The Girl With Ten Diamonds (Treasury Of Feel-Good Stories Book 3)

More Than This

How can he see me? she conjectured. How does he know I'm here? When she didn't answer, he called again. "Come on over! Come and see these guys!"

Hmm. He seems harmless enough…

The erstwhile slave walked over to the man, not getting too close.

But I'm sure he's harmless. He's old. Really old.

Although quite obviously primordial, the man sat in a half-lotus yoga position, apparently quite comfortably. He put out a mat for her. "Here, have a seat and watch what's coming." He pointed down the beach.

The used-to-be-slave found herself intrigued and did as she was asked. On her own volition, of course. It could not be otherwise now.

They watched as a flock (some refer to this as a gaggle) of silvery geese flew up from the beach and landed on the grass, not far from where the two watchers sat. Immediately the birds began to graze.

The old man said nothing; he watched the geese intently; and, what's more, he seemed to be enjoying watching these geese very much.

Finally, he turned to her and said, "Aren't they wonderful?"

"Sure. They're great."

"What's troubling you so, child?"

The freewoman did not especially appreciate being referred to as a child, but she felt some sort of trust for this goose man—I'll bet he wouldn't like me calling him that, she thought.But Samara decided to confide in him and so told him her troubles.

"I got kicked out of my university course."

"Oh. I see. What is that you're wearing?"

"Lab coat. Guess I won't be needing it anymore."

She removed the coat, and in so doing, pulled out the photograph she had taken in the master's laboratory.

"And what's that?" the old man asked.

"It's a photograph of chromosomes."

She looked at it for a moment. The ancient one had returned to his goose goggling. Never taking his eyes off the birds, he enquired, "Are you able to leave it all behind you?"

"Well, I guess so. I mean, I'm out. That's it. All I have is this." She showed him the photo. "I mean, well, I thought…"

"Go on."

"Well, looking at this, I just figured, is this it? Is this all there is? They told me in class that this picture represents the entirety of the human race! And, I just had to open my big fat mouth and challenge that. I just couldn't keep going along with it. Stopped me in my tracks."

"Let me take a look." She handed it over.

He enquired, "What is your name, by the way? Mine's Mr G. You can guess why." He smiled proudly.

A little warily, she answered, "Samara. Samara Jones."

Mr G perused the photograph. "Well, it's impressive technology, alright."

"Yes. Yes, it is. But there's something wrong about it."

"Then you were right to question it."

"Yeah. But it got me kicked out of uni."

"Just for asking a question? I thought universities were supposed to encourage thinking."

"Yeah, me too. Once. Actually, I've been messing up quite a bit, so the question thing kinda nailed it."

Mr G re-focussed on his beloved geese. Samara Jones was thinking of leaving, when finally, he replied, "So, what will you do now?"

"Um, I don't know. I really don't. I've sort of been walking around in a daze. I want to help the earth! You know, the environment. But I just can't handle that course. Too much math. Statistics and stuff. Freakin' mega-algebra. And chemistry! Huge formulas. They call it chemistry for life sciences. And I call it chemical death. Not my strong point, that's for sure.

"I mean, they try to stuff your head into some kind of conformity jar—my mind feels trapped! You’re not allowed to question anything, and there’s no exploring outside their set-in-stone parameters, believe it!”

Mr G knew full well that Samara needed to vent her frustrations, so he continued listening to her. And, he suspected there was at least some truth in what she was saying.

Samara ranted on. "You know what I think is happening? They enrol as many students as they can, take our money, then run us through their mill. If we conform to their way of thinking, we might end up as researchers, doing the grunt work on their research! If not, we eventually fail. But not before they wring as much enrolment money out of us as they possibly can. Then they just find some other naïve student to fleece.