My Faithful Followers
Filling my lungs with the crisp morning air, I savoured the beauty of the still sleepy sky. Moisture-soaked wind teasingly caressed my hair leaving behind the gossips of the night. As I jogged, the waves swathed my bare feet spiritedly. Still heady from the hangover of the full moon night, the waves ventured far, defying the disciplinary sun, overpowering the sand with its wetness.
With each step, I scoured some wet sand. Some grains rose up in my support. The weight of my ego pressed hard on them. My footprints called out my name. I turned and admired those explicit marks. My legacy imprinted. My footprints! Eulogizing my existence through my unique biometrics.
“What a stately, imposing mark!
My impression, wow! my hallmark,
Isn't it only, one of its kind!
For generations to come, I leave behind.”
I hummed with pride.
“Wait! Please wait. Don’t leave us here,” I heard faint voices crying for help. I turned around eagerly looking in all directions.
“Who? Who is there?” I mumbled to myself. The vacant beach stared back at me. Baffled, I resumed walking. The pleadings returned. “Don’t leave us behind. We are your legacies, your identity, your personal mark. We are scared.”
Moving close to the source of the cries, this time I bent down to hear them. “Oh! Were my footprints speaking to me? What, no, I am hallucinating,” I stared unbelievably at the sand. Indeed, my footprints spoke again.
“We, your footprints, your marks so bold,
Proudly carved, your story we uphold,
So hard you worked, through your life,
An impression you left, after so much strife.”
“Please, do not leave us here. The insatiable sea will devour us with one drowning wave. Your pride, identity, and glory would be guzzled and washed clean. Please take us along,” they prayed.
Stunned, I stared back at them. An empty hollowness pulled me down, dragging me into the black depths of self-introspection. How happy I was when I saw them first! Surrendering to my ego’s weight, they had quietly breathed alive in the wet sand.
“Easy to come, easy to go,
Sadly I stare, at the footprints below,
Fooled I was, thinking they would stay that way,
Shaped in a hurry, they soon got washed away.”
My ego trickled down as a lone tear. I sadly saw my transient fame smudge into nothingness.
Dreading to take another step, I paused staring at the plain brown sand flowing through my toes. After a long wait, I finally moved again. This time I did not rejoice to see my ephemeral, worldly marks.
“Hey! Don’t be heartbroken. Not all marks are impermanent, my friend,” my unsteady, not so proud footprint called out to me.
“Aim my friend, to make an everlasting print,
Write your fate, with indelible ink,
Etched on stone, with years of sedimented pain,
Not with ego, leave a mark, with fossilised strain.”
Speechless, I gathered my morning finds and walked back with pearls of wisdom.
A true gift, from my faithful followers.
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