An old man scratches his stomach through rags on a street corner. On cardboard he has written: “Anything Helps.”

A suited man approaches, and the old man says. “Please, sir, spare some change for this beggar?”

The man replies, “I don’t have any change. I just bought a new wallet.”

J.D. Mraz is a husband and father of two. Writers Ray Bradbury, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Anton Chekhov greatly influence his work. He has five published short stories and a self-published novel to his credit.