The stone beneath the leaves
Long before anyone called him Rich Ape, he slept beneath a leaking market awning at the edge of the jungle city. Merchants passed with polished shoes and guarded cases while he traded jokes for bruised fruit. One rainy night, a tiny loose diamond rolled from a jeweller's cart and stopped beside his hand.
He could have exchanged it for a mountain of bananas. Instead, he held it beneath the streetlight and noticed something important: people did not stop for the stone; they stopped for the way it caught the light. He kept the diamond and began studying attention.


