As they walked, Master Cho and his disciple came upon a purple crocus, coaxed forth by April’s showers. The acolyte bent low and plucked a weed away from the dazzling bloom. “You acted without awareness,” scolded the sensei. “Did you not see the exquisite beauty in what you have destroyed?”

Nick Young is a retired award-winning CBS News Correspondent. In addition to 50-Word Stories, his writing has appeared in more than two dozen publications including the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Best of CaféLit 11 and Vols. I and II of the Writer Shed Stories anthologies. He lives outside Chicago.