Smoke Signal

A lone shipwreck survivor on an uninhabited island
managed to build a rude hut in which he placed all
that he had saved from the sinking ship.
He prayed to God for deliverance, and anxiously
scanned the horizon each day to hail any passing ship.

One day, while he was cooking breakfast in his little home, he saw on the horizon the outline of an ocean liner. Frantically he ran to the beach, and jumped up and down excitedly, waving his arms up and down and screaming at the top of his lungs. Alas, the ship just kept going and made no movement in his direction.

Dismayed and dejected, the man turned his back to his hut and found that the hut had caught fire. Within the hour, the hut had burned to the ground, all that he had was gone. The man sat on a rock and cried, surely this was the worst day of his life.

 The next day, a ship arrived to rescue him. The man was elated beyond words, how did you know  I was here the he asked the captain
"We saw your smoke signal," the captain said.
adapted from - Walter A Heiby via Alan Cohen