Scorching dry white sand, even a drop of water cannot be seen. Heat emanates like steam from white sand. No shade even for a sparrow to sit. No insects, even a fly to fly. Sky, the boiling blue plate above, below boiling white sand, the desert; if some ground nuts are thrown to the sand it would get roasted within moments. No hope of cloud or no cloud of hope. What happened to the spring, autumn and winter here? Only ripe summer. Hot winds blow with blistering heat. Baby dunes appear here and there in hot winds like smallpox eruptions. By next wind, they disappear and erupts some other locations. Small heaps of sandstones and flints can be seen scattered here and there like warts on the white skin. Often some of these heaps can be seen bloomed with black vultures. But by the next wind, they disappear and dissolve somewhere in the atmosphere. Sometimes mad hot wind breaks its chain. It redesigns the desert scene, high sand deposits disappear, new big sand dunes take place, and new low sand regions appear. Sometimes small sandy cyclones can be seen going up like big devilish flowers, in distances, some other times very near. A devil’s heaven, his spirit works relentlessly all over here.
No idea how this man reached here. None has provided him food and water. He has been starving for days. Throat has parched and cracked, no spring near around to get a drop of water or a juicy plant to squeeze and drink or to chew even a leaf. No sounds, except the death-whistling of hot wind. No chattering, no cooing, no humming, no words. Pitch darkness under the hot sun. The man began to ponder over the depressed state of his ancestor in Eden Garden.
“There had enough greenery, fruits, birds and other beautiful comrades to make his daily life lively there, then why had he been so depressed in his life amidst such a paradise of plenitude? If he had spent some days here in this desert, what would have been his plight then? Would he have committed suicide? He had lonely been in a beautiful forest with the retinue of natural friends, but here I am lonely in a terrible sand forest, everything has deserted me. Yes, I know now what he had suffered there. It was ‘the words’ that he lacked, the spoken words. Whether it is in Eden or in this desert, the words give real life and rejuvenation for the soul and spirit. In the beauty of words, life throbbing. Beautifully articulated words beget life and energy. That’s creative. ”
While wandering his thought like this breaking chain it met with the thought of the Lord of the desert. That began to lecture.
“Among all living beings you, the men, are creative. God has created you as his own son. None other than man can cultivate or create his own bread, food, and other consumables. You are the one and only being other than God who can create. So I tell you to create bread from these stones. The consumables men needed, here in this desert. Thus we can change this desert to a city, you can, the man can, I know.”
The man answered “You think that man lives by bread alone. Not so, man lives with words and verses too. Man rebuild and recreate his material surroundings as you mentioned, but it is not the one and only marvelous peculiarity he possesses. The unique and marvelous peculiarity he posses is that the citizenship in the world of words and verses. Otherwise, consumer world may be his creation but he is the creation of the world of words and verses. Not only he builds a consumer world but he builds a cultural world too. He needs bread as he has the body. But he needs verses too as he has soul also. The one who lives only in the consumer world is not a man but beast. But the one who lives mainly in cultural world and for the sake of existence in the consumer world is the man. He floats in the cultural world, in words and verses, and enjoy the celestial solace. He cannot be solaced in or by consumer world.
As the bread, so the body; As the words, so the soul.
Without words and verses, life is an arid desert like this where sandstorms and deadly cyclones blow without any hindrance. Words replenish, enrich, refresh and reinforce soul. It has miraculous power. It makes possible what impossible by matter, by consumables, by tools. So, man becomes so by words not by bread.”
The arid windblown was straining to take away the tunic laid on the shoulder of the man. He took and wound it across his chest to defeat the wind’s attempt. The wind continued blowing obstinately against the man. He stood against it firmly, and then wind tried to take away sand from below his feet. But he began to step forward to survive the wind and its devices. The lord of desert led him to a high mountain cliff and made him stand on the verge, and then said,
“Jump down; I want to see the power of your words and verses that you say it has. I want to see whether it support you safely. I want to see what influence that words will have upon your body.”
The man responded “You enticed well my grandsires too. But I ask that how can the power of words and verses be tested? All those are men, are under the influence of words. Words are beyond us and they make us. They carve us, design us. We cannot influence them, the words and verses. They are not within our limit but we men are within words limit. A stone can be tested by you as it is within your limit, but not the universe as it is not within your limit but you’re within the limit of the universe. Words mean a universe and it always beyond men. Of course, this universe is within man and man within it. But the bread is under our control. We never allow them to determine our lives but our lives determine our bread. You are controlled by bread and that is your God. You showed my grandsires the world of fruit and bread there in that Garden and told them to work for them. Thereby you deprived them of verses that they used to hear in cool evenings every day. You handed them sharp tools to cut, split and cultivate. They ate their bread by the sweat of their forehead. They mend the ground with the tools. They felled the Eden and made it a dry land, later desert where I am now. And later as they deprived of verses, they used those sharp tools to mend one another. That devilish strategy they still continue, instead of verses they use sharp tools to mend one another and incessant bloodshed. So, that devilish strategy won’t work with me.”
Lord of desert showed him the world and its plenitude then said,
“Look the city and its glory! How marvelous it is! Big mansions, beautiful gardens and nice streets, All are the result of labor for bread. In search of food and facilities, men have created all these. These are either the byproducts or the main products of the work of men for their bread. I expose the enchantment of this consumer world before men and stop chanting words, make them silent to work with tools. I deprived them of words and thought to focus on bread and body. Look they have changed the face of the earth with marvelous and great structures. Give up that nonsense idea of words and verses and come to the ground reality, obey me, follow me, worship me, I will give you all these wealth and its glory.”
The man answered “Your ground reality is this where I stand now, the blistering desert. You advised my ancestors to make the Garden to a ground reality. They obeyed, they came far away from words and verses they used to enjoy in their life and convert that Garden of ever-spring to everlasting summer, the desert where I am suffering now. Here not only the drought dries the ground but also it dries the throat, prevents words and verses.
You preached about the glory of your world. Where is it? Where are the glorious works you executed in history? Where is Babel tower? Where are Babylonia and its glory? Where are the Kingdoms and its glories? Where are the cities created in last century? Where are the Palaces where Kings and Emperors conducted their councils? Where are their inner courts embedded with diamonds, rubies, and pearls where wise men sat and debated? Can you completely trace what you created in last decade? I challenge you to trace everything that you have achieved yesterday in your world, can you? But I will show you the universe of words and verses the eternal world where everything that they created exists.”
Saying this, the man took a scroll from his waist and opened. A loud earth shaking thunder and lightning happened. Suddenly the desert disappeared and through the scroll, another world opened where the lord of the desert could see the Eden and its inhabitants Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Patriarchs, David, Kings and Kingdoms, Emperors and Empires …………….. The world where everything exists without fading, even the Greece the cradle of civilizations and her philosophers can be seen. The man turned the scroll’s page to next. There the future could be seen, a golden city where the people are young and energetic. None is hungry, thirsty, craving or lust all are intoxicated with spirit. No food and drinks there. No relations, no father, no son, no daughter, no mother, no wife, no husband all are like angels. No sex, no pregnancy, no birth and no death all are beautifully naked and no shame. No labor no exploitation. All are enjoying, playing and flying, the Heaven. Seeing this, the lord of desert fainted and fell down.
The man shouted, “away from me you Satan.” Then he closed his scroll.
A black thunder and lightning along with earthquake took place. After darkness, the light came back. The man looked to the ground to see the lord of the desert who fell down. He found nothing else other than a loaf of bread.
