Two people came out of a building. What a pair. A high-heeled middle aged woman in a tweed coat clicked down the stairs as a stout balding man scurried after her.

“Listen,” she snapped, “I told you, my mother left me this ring; I am the one keeping it safe until we find a buyer.”

She had no intention of entrusting him with the ring. The man who managed to lose keys, misplace reading glasses and forget to pick up the kids. She wasn’t going to chance it.

The couple continued bickering as they ventured down the sidewalk to their apartment three blocks away. Suddenly a clap of thunder echoed through the city streets and sheets of rain began to fall all around them.

As they sped up they passed the ‘resident’ vagrant huddled under a cardboard box in attempt to get shelter from the rain. Never a day went by when ‘Lucy’ the sidewalk begger abandoned her post. She had occupied her stretch of pavement for years but no one ever seemed to pay her much attention. The couple’s hurried footsteps meant a jet of unnecessary water slashed onto Lucy. Paying no attention they journeyed on.

Before turning in to bed that evening, the couple admired the flawless, million dollar diamond ring as it sparkled. The woman then returned the ring to her purse and shoved it to the bottom of her oversized bag.

06:00 am. The man arose early and stalked up to his wife’s handbag; he was to find the ring and place it in a safety deposit box, an idea he’d come up with during his sleepless night. The ring would then technically be in his possession and he would have one up on his wife.

In the belly of his pocket, the ten dollar stitching had begun to unravel. Oblivious to the fact that his cheap suit was about to fail him, he tucked the ring away in his pocket.

Nervously he trotted down the sidewalk towards the bank. As he passed, Lucy, the homeless woman attempted to speak to him. “Sir, sir!”, but the man would hear nothing of it, he refused to speak to such rubbish or even engage in as much as eye contact with the dirty woman, he had done so for years and wasn’t about to change now.

The man arrived at the huge granite building and pushed his way through the glass doors. However, when it came time to place the highly valued ring into the deposit box he became the picture of a Zulu performing his traditional gum-boot dance. Patting his hands all over his body in hope of feeling the diamond bump, but there was none.

Mind racing and panic in his heart, the man walked back to his apartment noticing Lucy for once, however not for her presence, but for her absence.

Placing his hand in his pocket he felt the little hole in the corner of the fabric for the first time and realised that his own judgemental nature had just cost him a comfortable life and paid for someone else’s.