They told me that my dead father was waiting for me at the top of the mountain. Before dying, he had forgotten the one final lesson, and the gods had given him special permission to impart that, and then he would leave the state of purgatory.
The path to the top was treacherous. It was crowded with men and women following their own paths, with children and urchins blocking my way, with beggars and hobos looking for change, with ol
d men and women seeking shelter, with friends who had become strangers and strangers who looked like lost friends.
I fought them all to reach the top.
There he was sitting atop a stone like a zen master. His beard, grey, just like the last time I saw him. I told him how I fought, clashed, battled, brawled and confronted those men, women, children, hobos, strangers and friends, to seek the lesson he descended to convey.
He said, ‘Be kind to the people on your way up, you shall meet the same people on your way down’, before vanishing into the thin air, whence he came.