Jac was a likeable guy, as well as a reknowned artiste. Creativity spilled from him as wine from the flask. His genius was legendary. Everyone plied him with compliments, jostling and crowding each other to sit beside him on the stoop, watching him work, crying for more.

"More, Jac! More!"

The stoop was getting crowded.

"I will build a house," Jac thought. "I have always wanted a house. It shall be the manifestation of a long-time vision. A place where all can come and enjoy my art, protected from the wind and the rain and the hustlers on the street corners."

And so he did.

And one by one his friends clamored to enter this new dwelling place adorned by Jac's art.

"Come!", Jac cried. "Come and bring your art, too, and hang it with mine. There is plenty of room."

"We love you, Jac!", they cried, as they moved in.

One morning Jac awoke to the sound of hammers and saws. He looked around to find his friends busily tearing down the hallowed walls.

"What are you doing?," Jac asked.

"We are building a lemonade stand."

"But you're tearing down our house!"

"Of course," they said. "We have to. We need the lumber."

"But... but you are destroying our house of art!"

"We want a lemonade stand instead."

"Well, I don't," Jac said. "If I had wanted a lemonade stand, I would have built one."

"We hate you, Jac!", they cried, as they moved out.

© Youngblood Brasket
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