(This symbolic story presents a difficult situation through the symbols of a “picture” and a “promise.” The characters try to understand these symbols from their own individual perspectives.)
Yesterday evening, I fell asleep with my Android phone in my hand. I slept soundly. When I opened my eyes, dawn had already broken. The phone was still in my hand. A strange worry had taken hold of me: what if the picture changed… What if the promise was broken?
When morning came, there was only one thought in my mind: what if the picture changed… What if the promise was broken? When I left home, the same thought followed me along the way… When I got into the car, the same thought… And when I reached the shrine, the same worry remained fixed in my mind: what if the picture changed… What if the promise was broken?
A sea of thoughts surged through my mind. Suddenly, I raised my eyes towards the sky and began to cry out:
“Take it, O Lord… take it, O Lord… O Lord, take it… take it, O Lord…”
I kept calling out loudly when someone suddenly caught hold of my hand. I looked around and saw a crowd gathered around me.
Someone in the crowd said:
“You madman… people say, ‘Give it, O Lord’… and here you are saying, ‘Take it, O Lord’… What is there left for Him to take?”
I looked straight into his eyes and shouted:
“Hatred… Jealousy… Spite… Ignorance…”
He asked:
“What do you want?”
I said:
“Let the picture not change… let the promise not be broken.”
He asked:
“What was in the picture?”
I said:
“My past…”
He asked:
“What was there in the past?”
I said:
“Affection… Tolerance… Truthfulness… Humanity…”
He wanted to question me further, but someone else in the crowd interrupted him and said:
“This fellow is mad… He must be looking for some Laila.”
Someone slapped him hard across the face and said:
“You are the mad one… He is simply a man lost in his own world. One should not insult such a person.”
Someone else said:
“Yes, my friend… What does a madman know? He can say anything.”
The others in the crowd also began to interpret my words according to their own points of view.
Someone said:
“What promise is he talking about, after all?”
Another said:
“He must be talking about the promises politicians make to people during elections, promises they never fulfil.”
Someone said:
“And the picture? ”
Another replied:
“It must be the picture of someone close to him or someone he once knew… perhaps a friend… perhaps a brother or a son whose face was disfigured by cruel hands.”
Someone said:
“Could he be talking about some old promise that people have forgotten with the passage of time?”
Someone said:
“You should study history… then you will discover the truth. Perhaps he is talking about a past that had its own identity and its own distinct picture. Perhaps that is the promise he is talking about.”
Someone said:
“No, my friend… He is mad. Some girl must have driven him crazy.”
“Come on… come on… let’s go…”
“One man has gone mad; that doesn’t mean we all have to.”
“Come on… everyone, let’s go…”
And before I knew it, everyone had left, one by one, and I was alone again…
The same thought returned to my mind:
What if the picture changed… What if the promise was broken?
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