Happiness
Once upon a time, was a man whose life was happy- He was not very rich or very successful, he lived by his own, without a woman beside him, or a family behind him. His house was small, and he suffered from pain and of cold. Deprivation and hunger was his share, the dreams of his childhood he had left behind and the future he abandoned, leaving it insecure. He had no friends, and his work, which was a simple, tough labor, was uninteresting and hopeless- But despite all this, he was happy, because as long as his life was destitute, his future unknown to him, and his plans and dreams forgotten - he had something to hope for.
The great mystery of life evaded him, leaving him in eternal awe in front of the world. In the rock bottom he reached, he was happy, because from there he could have only gone up.
And in the summer’s dusk, when the days began to shorten slowly and light was fading earlier and earlier every day in his glorious red demise. When the wind began to blow fiercely, reddening and yellowing leaves in its path and harbingering the frost in wailings. The man was sitting in his home and fed the fire in the hearth with another log, watching how first the flames lick the logs with its yellow tongue, then devours it greedily. The smoke rose from the chimney as a shivering, pale gray pillar, pointing its finger at the night sky. The man sat in his wicker chair and closed his hands to the fire to warm them a little, after a while, he fell asleep in his chair by the fire- which began to whisper in raging hunger and slowly die to ashes.
When he got up in the morning to go to work, he felt something out of the ordinary, his smile vanished, and despite the cold- that tightly governed the world around him- felt as if thousands and thousands of small fires were burning inside him and had trouble breathing.
In his work, that on that day was to transfer heavy sacks of grain into the new barn, he barely stood. The rich farmer- who employed him- saw his lousy work, but when he approached him to ask if he’s ill, the man quickly denied, scared of losing his employment. But the farmer saw his bad condition and sent the man home. By the end of the day, the doctor was already rushed to the house.
Winter arrived, carrying in his cloak ice that froze lakes and ponds on his path, bounding brooks with white chains of frost, sheds leaves off trees, and covers the ground in his white soft blanket, singing for it with breezes and thunders his calm lullabies, and under its loving hand the earth fell asleep, sleeping a slumber of death. The man, who was very sick, lay in his miserable bed, the doctor and several kind neighbors that came to offer their assistance beside him. However, the doctor- who was the smartest person in the village, a scholar hermit who left the many titles and honor who were his in the academy in the city so he could calmly live in the village- has already knew that his patient's death was near, and that there was nothing to do to stop it- the patient will not survive until the next morning- all remained for him to do was to ease the pain and to buy him as much time as he can.
He sent for the priest, who was his good friend and a kind and respected man.
The patient, feeling the waves of fever showering him, lay, moaning softly in his agony, burning with fever. When the priest came, the doctor greeted him with respect and friendship, and turned to leave, but the patient insisted that the person who cures the sick is a man of God as much as a priest, and demanded that he’ll stay. A few minutes later, the two came out looking grim, talking with each other quietly, and sent quickly for the carpenter, there was a need for a coffin. The patient’s final seconds were scorched in both their minds, how he declared he doesn’t need to confess, for he has no regrets, and then fell to his bed, never to get up again, on his face- a smile. He lived happy and he died happy, full of eternal awe in front of the world, and knowing that from there, he could only go up.
I love your wording "he could only go up." Champion. <3