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The sky was drizzling gently—like a gentle drizzle of rain—as people walked past, umbrellas open, eyes downcast. But no one noticed the woman in the beige suit who sank to her knees in the middle of the intersection. Her voice trembled. "Please… marry me," she whispered, clutching the velvet box. The man she was proposing to? He hadn't shaved in weeks, wore a coat patched with duct tape, and slept in an alley just a block from Wall Street.
Two weeks ago
Elena Ward, a 36-year-old billionaire tech CEO and single mother, had it all—or so the world thought. Fortune 100 awards, magazine covers, and a penthouse overlooking Central Park. But behind the glass walls of her office, she felt overwhelmed.
Her six-year-old son, Liam, had been silent since his father, a renowned surgeon, left her for a young model and a life in Paris. Liam no longer smiled. Not at cartoons, not at puppies, not even at chocolate cake.
Nothing brought him joy anymore... except the strange, ragged man who fed the pigeons in front of his school.
Elena first noticed him when she was running late picking up her son. Liam, quiet and reserved, pointed across the street and said, “Mom, that man talks to birds like they’re his family.”
Elena waved it off—until she saw it for herself. A homeless man, maybe forty, with warm eyes beneath a layer of grime and a beard, crumbled bread on a stone fence and spoke quietly to each dove, as if to a friend. Liam stood nearby, watching him with a gentle gaze—and a silence she hadn't seen in months.
From then on, Elena arrived five minutes early every day just to observe this exchange.
One evening, after a difficult council meeting, Elena walked alone past the school. He stood there—despite the rain—mumbling to the birds, soaked but still smiling.
She hesitated, but crossed the street.
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