Once upon a time, in a small kingdom surrounded by rolling hills and sunflower fields, there lived a king named Oliver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
King Oliver was wonderful in every way\u2014he was kind, always smiling, and even gave each cat in the castle a name. But he had one small problem: he loved gold too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His crown was gold, his scepter was gold, and even his slippers were gleaming gold (though they were hard and cold to wear\u2014something he never admitted).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One night, King Oliver had a dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the dream, an old man with a silver beard appeared before him and said with a smile, \u201cDear King, I can grant you one wish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
King Oliver jumped up in excitement: \u201cI want\u2026 everything in my kingdom to turn into gold!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAre you sure?\u201d the old man asked, stroking his beard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOf course I\u2019m sure!\u201d King Oliver exclaimed. \u201cGold is so beautiful! It sparkles, and everyone loves it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old man waved his hand gently and said, \u201cThen so be it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning, as soon as King Oliver opened his eyes, he discovered his pillow had turned to gold. Overjoyed, he ran barefoot to the window\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wow! The roses in the garden had turned into golden roses, the fountain had become a golden fountain, and even the little birds in the trees had turned into golden birds, standing motionless on the branches like exquisite sculptures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is amazing!\u201d King Oliver clapped his hands in delight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when he went out to take a walk in the garden, he discovered that the golden roses no longer had any scent. The golden fountain no longer flowed. The golden birds could no longer sing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Worse still, when he tried to hug his favorite little orange cat, Muffin, Muffin had turned into a gleaming golden statue\u2014hard as a rock and unable to give off any warmth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Holding the golden cat Muffin, King Oliver felt for the first time just how cold, cold gold really was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He sat in the garden and said sadly, \u201cI don\u2019t want gold anymore. I\u2019d much rather have a little flower that smells sweet, a little bird that sings, and a warm little cat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just then, a gentle breeze blew by, and the old man with the silver beard appeared again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAre you sure?\u201d the old man asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m absolutely sure!\u201d King Oliver nodded vigorously. \u201cGold may be beautiful, but things that can smile, sing, and give hugs are what\u2019s truly precious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old man smiled, his beard fluttering in the breeze. With a gentle tap of his finger, everything returned to the way it had been\u2014the rose once again gave off a sweet fragrance, the fountain began to sing with a gurgling sound, the little birds chirped from the branches, and Muffin, the little orange kitten, meowed and rubbed against King Oliver\u2019s palm, warm and cozy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From that day on, King Oliver still loved shiny things, but what he loved most of all was\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The morning sun streaming into the garden, Muffin curled up on his lap, purring, birds singing outside the window, and on the distant hill, sunflowers turning toward the sun, blooming one by one, slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He felt that this was the most beautiful sight in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Good night, and have a sweet dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The King\u2019s Golden Dream<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[21,18],"class_list":["post-869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children","tag-children","tag-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions\/872"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}