“Now let me tell you a story,” said the ghost of lost dreams to his secretary:
“Long were the days and longer were the nights of Rumi as he travelled around the land looking for something to do until he came to a plot of land that nobody wanted; and so he decided to build a temple.
Sixteen rivets and a Patagonia mud-wrestler later the temple was finally built.
“Now for some customers,” said Rumi to the monkey who was just sitting there, its eyes following his every move.
Along the dusty road that stretched away forever, or at least as far as the eyes could see, a speck of dust could be made out.
Rumi quickly put up his sign by the side of the road: Fast enlightenment here with free cup of coffee. All questions answered by your local guru. Terms arranged.
The sun went down as the last nail was put in the sign, so Rumi turned on the light for illumination.
“Can’t miss that,” he said, and went to eat his evening meal in the Satori shack that doubled up as his eating place.
In the field behind the shack, many blades of grass struggled in the hot sun, each one with its own cricket, chirping to create a white noise, unless it rained, then they all went quiet and the serenade of the frogs in their pond could be heard, with the hot heat of the day coming back out of the ground to make it always hot.
The dust in the far distance of the road never seemed to get any nearer. There was no traffic passing at all.
“Maybe they’ve broken down,” thought Rumi and decided to wait it out.
At the other end of the road, further than the eye could see, a huge storm washed the road away, and so it was closed for want of funds to re-build it.
Day after day Rumi waited until months had gone by, the hot heat and sometimes the wind-blown dust his only companions, and the full moon once a month, and sometimes an old crow would come to visit. It would call out things that Rumi didn’t understand.
“I really must learn how to talk to the birds,” said Rumi as he went about the business of running his enlightenment school, and although no one had come to enrol yet, he was hopeful; and so the years went by.
Nothing changed, no customers came; the dust in the distance of the road was the cement factory that never closed, and because the other end of the road was closed for repairs they had put up a barrier across the road that deterred everyone from going on it; no one wanted to anyway, it was just a long dusty road to nowhere.
So Rumi grew old and the temple fell into ruin.
Then one day the end came and that was that. All his endeavours turned into dust and blew away, and no one ever knew he was there.
So never build your temple beside a hot dusty road in the middle of nowhere where the future is so hard to see and the cows never come home.”
“No, I surely never will.”
“Good girl; now, take a message...”
Images from Pixabay
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