Waiting For Greatness

I’m doing the #Trust30 writing challenge. You can read more about it here. Every day, for the next 30 days, I’ll respond to a writing prompt and post (most of) what I write here on the blog.

Here is the first prompt:

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.?
2. Write the story that has to be written.

This is what I wrote. (With some polishing and editing after the time expired.)

*****

Once upon a time there was a man who spent his days sitting by the road waiting for an opportunity to be great. He knew he was destined for greatness. He could feel it within him, almost taste it. But he was never sure of what great thing he was meant to accomplish. So everyday he parked himself by the roadside and waited for someone who would come and tell him what great thing he needed to do.

One day an old pilgrim came shuffling down the road. He was well acquainted with poverty and suffering. When the pilgrim saw the man sitting by the side of the road he asked him what he was doing there.

“Waiting,” said the man.

“On what?” asked the pilgrim.

“For the opportunity to be great.”

“What will this opportunity look like?” asked the pilgrim, already amused.

“It will be a person who will find me here, see the greatness within me, and tell me what great thing I must do.”

The pilgrim laughed, “Great people don’t wait by the side of the road hoping to be told what to do.”

The man shrugged and the pilgrim sat down beside him and joined him in his wait for greatness.

After some time the pilgrim asked, “Do you have any bread?”

“Yes. I bring my lunch everyday,” the man said as he handed him the bread from his basket.

The pilgrim ate the bread, for he was hungry, and then said, “Perhaps this is the great thing you are supposed to do, giving your bread away to a hungry stranger.”

“No,” said the man, “I give most of my food away every day to those who pass by. I’ve fed hundreds of hungry pilgrims just like you.”

“Ah, now I understand who you are waiting for,” the pilgrim said, his eyes twinkling.

He thanked the man for his kindness and shuffled on down the road, making room for the man’s next opportunity to be great.