Rings (II)

            The young man was now a shivering old man. Only his fingers retained the vitality of his youth, and still he used them to shape rings. Each ring now was meticulously crafted of precious metals and gemstones or ornately carved of hard, exotic wood. People offered him exorbitant prices, but he only gave them away to young men saying, “Have this. I made it for my wife.”
            He had never married. One of the young men asked him, “Isn’t it getting too late?”
            He smiled and replied, “I stopped dreaming about what a wife might be like long ago.”