Walking besides an ocean, an air of pestilence overwhelmed my heart, an air of dismay veiled it to such an extent that all my feelings, all my emotions went into a cloister and were canopied by it. I was drowning in my fancies when all of a sudden my surfeiting desire to cherish every moment of it was abated and I was purged back to myself with the splashes of brine on my face. The waves were in a playful mood and were constantly whispering something in my ear in an arcane language, leaving me and my soul utterly perplexed about their intentions, about their message and above all about their purpose. The purpose with which they had struck me, the purpose with which they had burned alive the link between my body and my soul.
The undulating waves were afflicting my sours and wounds, causing an odious sensation of agony all over my flesh, the same flesh which had committed numerous heinous crimes, which had tried to run from the gaol of death and which was now lying naked and solo on the vast stretches of burning sand.
There was no need, yet I vacillated my arms and feet to have a view of the magnanimous ocean which had saved my life. With just a blink of an eye I was able to capture the spectacular view of the horizon where the sun and my savior were playing hide and seek and the gulls were cherishing this game, the game that the nature plays day in day out. Each miniscule element of the atmosphere was saffronised, the great hand was busy changing the shades from bright yellow to orange to the darker shades with his brush of eternity .It was the time to bid adieu to the sun . Night would now creep in slowly and silently accompanied with darkness.
I was now in a melancholy state, my body had already left me to my fate, and just moving it a little, was a chimerical thought. But still my soul was burning blithely, still I had that desire to live, that voracious feeling to assimilate each and every moment that has been provided to me and to make a pile of the moments of past and to utilize those moments in achieving my dreams, in fulfilling my ambitions and in making my accolades conspicuous to the world, which may be interpreted as mercenary on my part, but I am a common man, common in my thoughts, in my feelings and in my deeds. The burning soul had replenished me with a gamut of faith, veracity and wisdom, all of which I had lost to my other self through out my life, and now I was ready to replete my soul with its long awaited insatiable desire of its freedom.
Soon I observed that the auspicious colloquy of the waves had transformed from soft whispers to roaring altercations amongst them and the beach, and I was a mere spectator of this next show which the nature had put up. I was now enjoying every scene of this drama, but my flesh was not, very soon I received an order from my verdant mind to get up and to save my freshly rescued life again from being drowned into deep waters of the ocean. I bolstered my will to live and with ebullient and gnarly thoughts in my mind I got up and trampled my way to the nearest bush under a tree.
Here I lay in equanimity in the niche of a half crescent moon and the twinkling stars and the whole universe, the universe which was conspiring to nurture my destiny, when suddenly I realized that besides me there also lay a paltry innocuous creature praying for its life. Minute observation revealed that it was a snail; a tiny little snail bruised to every inch of it, yet was being reticent to help the white ants which were trying to feed themselves from its flesh.
The snail was striving hard to survive, it was constantly maneuvering its body, it was gasping for the last breath destined to it, but the grasp of the ants was impeccable, they had left the creature helpless. Soon the snail gave up; when all of a sudden I observed that I was actually able to converse with it. It begged me its death, it had lost all its will to live, it had no ambitions and to be true no energy left to remain alive, and was desperately seeking an end to its life so that it would have been relieved of the torments which were a part and parcel of its destiny.
I was left in a quandary and this was to be the greatest decision of my freshly recovered free life. Should I kill the snail and let it rest in peace? Or should I leave the snail alone to its excruciating pain and its destiny? This was becoming more and more abstruse and was beyond my comprehension as a plethora of new questions popped up in my mind.
Was it in my destiny to kill that snail?
Or was it the snail’s destiny to be killed by me?
Or was it our destiny that I would be the convict and the snail an acquit?
Would killing the snail affect my destiny? Or would it not…? Have I got the right to do it? And many more.
But my heart dominated my mind this time and I made an instantaneous decision. My heart could not bear the sufferings of the poor snail and instinctively I gathered a stone in my hand and ended the life of an innocent creature. Was this the way I was going to start my new life? Was this an ambition for me? Would I win an accolade for such an act? Again my heart lost its control over my mind and the next round of questions started but impulsively something struck me onto my head, making me dizzy and weak and all the synergies of my organs was being withdrawn by an invisible force leading me to my ultimate truth. My vision became blurred and again an air of pestilence canopied my heart.
Lying helplessly, I watched, hundreds of seagulls circling overhead, the frogs croaking vociferously from beneath the bushes, insects too were apprehensively making noises, uproar of the sea waves was distinctively audible and the white ants were preparing themselves for a grand feast.
