One fine night, I was wondering in the woods. The charm of the cool romantic night had totally captured my senses and made me lose my attention as I carelessly strolled around among the mysterious trees, lost in an unexplainable beauty. I found myself almost becoming a poet or a philosopher as the practical touch and feel began to diminish in the growing darkness of the uncanny night. As I crossed the thin paths clothed with dry leaves that were crunched by my strong spiky shoes, I seemed to have forgotten the promise I made to my teacher early this morning.
In the retrospect I could see myself talking earnestly to my honourable teacher that morning, who was sitting alone in her cabin in a complete messed up situation. I tried to intrigue into the matter and dared to boldly ask her if I can help her sort out any problem. It would be a pleasure to help her find a solution to the complications she seemed to be trapped in. Her perplexed face looked at me like broken pieces and her eye brows raised up in a question as her uncertain eyes met mine. I realized the need for empathy in those curtained eyes and became even more convinced of some unwanted condition around her. As I showed my strong desire to be of assistance, she felt she could confide in me and thus told me the whole thing. She wanted a good writer for herself who could write some unique articles, with high artistic approach, for her in a short span of time. All these were to be submitted for the school's International Literary Competition and she was the one selected by our school to accomplish this giant artistic work. She needed a helping hand for sure but where was she going to find extra-ordinarily skilled people. She will have to accomplish everything on her own like a crash-course which might finally crash at the International level. Oh! then it would be so disheartening that her heart might get dislodged from its position threatening her collapse. Oh no, a sincere and responsible student like me would not let that happen. Would I?
I told her that I was willing to help her as much as possible. Her dismayed looks began to vanish as an iota of ray started shining in her much-relaxed eyes as I told her that my father, few of his friends and myself sometimes get together and write articles for International competitions and we were good at proofreading too. So, we would help her achieve the goal in the desired time-frame. After making this promise, I made my way home and we all got engaged in this new errand. Monotony and tiredness began to dominate my mind, after I had gone a long way completing this task, which led me to the decision of going for a short walk in the woods nearby.
So, here I was walking all alone in the cold night trying to seek some refreshment for the heavily laded mind and had got engulfed by the serenity of the picturesque night. As I roamed about like a wonderer, I kept no notice of the path below my feet and dragged myself aimlessly in any appealing direction. All of a sudden, the whole world changed as a strong awakening signal was sent to my brain via my nerves which shook me from top to toe. Before I could realize the potential danger I had come across, I felt a strong stinging sensation on my left leg and fell unconscious.
When I opened my eyes in perplexity, I found myself in a strange city. I looked upwards to admire the heavenly white clouds, looked far all around to feel heavenly soft air and get the heavenly vision of white snowy mountains and then....I looked down....aaaah!!! What was that? There was no ground below my feet. I was floating in the air and there was no horizon, no demarcation or boundaries and all that was present was white snow-like clouds everywhere. Below my feet, as far as my vision permitted, there was just soft white clouds with no hard surface. I felt as if I was granted some power to walk in the air. How funny!! I found myself enclosed in an infinite space of a big ball of snowy white clouds. As I tried deeply to find out the sensitive details of my surroundings, I could figure out few more people floating in the space. So, I was not alone in the boat. Thank God!! But which place is this? Out of curiosity, I approached one of the souls there and inquired about this mysterious place and his answer made me stiff with shock. I was in Heaven!
I became anxious to talk to The Almighty. I asked this soul if he could help me to meet God. On this, he expressed difficulty and the need for a prior long-waited appointment. He took me to the soul incharge of that area and told him about my wish. The soul incharge denied. I begged and pleaded and tried every means to convey the importance of this required meeting with God. It was really urgent and important, otherwise everything will go topsy turvy on our dear Earth. Hearing this, the incharge soul got nervous and took me to the presence of the God. So, here I was face to face with God Himself.
I was stunned for a couple of minutes to see the peaceful, smiling, soft and loving personality of God. My eyes grew brighter and larger as my lips sealed up preventing me from uttering a single word when finally The God broke the silence and asked me the reason for my wish to meet Him.
I bowed down humbly before Him and said that He has picked me up at a wrong time. I cannot leave earth at this time of life when I have something that really needs my attention there. God told me that I was bit by a snake and so I am dead on earth with the completion of all my duties.
I told God that I have very important duties left to be performed and I just cannot afford to leave it in the middle. After that I explained the complete situation there on the earth, effortlessly, emphasizing the importance and ugency of the matter. My state put The God in confusion and he gave it a serious thought. Yes, work is worship and it comes first always. After a lot of pondering, He granted my wish to go back to the Earth for the sake of the crisis created there.
And lo...I was back on earth, in the same woods. I got up from the ground as if I had been into a deep slumber and as I made my way towards home, I kept recollecting the dream I had just seen. Was it a dream? or a reality? I inspected my left limb to discover the mark of snake bite. Holy Jesus!
Do you know, what did I tell God? I told him that I have lots of literary work to do to help my teacher who was struggling hard to do some good quality work. God granted me the permission to go back to the earth for the sake of work but on a condition that I should not over-burden myself and work at a slow constant speed and all those souls over-burdening themselves will be checked by God.
So, good luck to all. 'Work is Worship' but do not over-exert yourselves.
