I once lost my axe—and the first person I suspected was my neighbor.
After that, I started watching him more closely.
The way he walked suddenly looked like the walk of a man who had stolen someone else’s axe.
The way he spoke sounded as if there was a lie hidden in every word.
Every gesture he made seemed to whisper, “I took it.”
That night I barely slept. I kept replaying in my mind the words I planned to use when I confronted him.
But at dawn, just as the first sunlight touched the morning mist over the yard, I found my axe.
My son had hidden it under a pile of hay while he was playing.
The next day I ran into my neighbor.
And suddenly there was nothing suspicious about him at all.
Not in the way he walked.
Not in his voice.
Not in his gestures.
Standing in front of me was simply a regular man—calm, honest, and innocent.
And that’s when I understood something important:
The real thief had been me.
I had stolen his good name, his dignity…and I had stolen an entire night of peace from myself.
Because a heart clouded by suspicion can no longer recognize an honest soul.