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The Road Sage

The Best Short Story

By Abdul QayyumPublished 13 days ago 4 min read
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The Road Sage

The city beat with a chaotic cadence. Sounding horns entwined with removed sirens, an orchestra of urban life. However, in the midst of the concrete wilderness, settled in an overlooked corner, sat Elias, the Road Sage. Roosted on a drain carton exterior of a thrift store, his weathered confrontation, carved with an outline of life's encounters, held an ever-enduring shrewdness. His worn dress, an embroidered artwork of bungled colors, talked of a life lived past fabric belonging.

Elias wasn't destitute. He had a little flat over a dusty bookstore, filled with dog-eared books and whispering recollections. But his genuine domesticity was the road, the bustling heart of the city. There, he watched humankind in all its muddled eminence – the rushed businessman clutching a briefcase, the snickering children chasing pigeons, the exhausted single mother battling with flooding basic need packs.

His days were a kaleidoscope of experiences. A youthful craftsman, her confront streaked with tears, looked for comfort after a dismissal. Elias tuned in with a tender ear, his delicate voice an emollient to her injured soul. He talked of diligence, of the strength of the human soul, weaving stories of Van Gogh and his battles, demonstrating that indeed within the comfort of dismissal, significance can blossom.

A misplaced traveler, clutching a folded outline, drawn closer with a befuddled scowl. Elias, with a twinkle in his eye, got to be her offhand direct. He didn't point her towards visitor traps, but towards covered up pearls – an idiosyncratic coffee shop run by a jazz-loving barista, a stop abounding with life where children played and ancient men contended chess moves on worn stop seats.

A fatigued development laborer, his face carved with weariness, ceased for a moment's relief. Elias, without a word, advertised him a bottle of water, a straightforward motion that talked volumes. They sat in a comfortable hush, a shared understanding filling the hole between words. The specialist, some time recently clearing out, squeezed a folded dollar charge into Elias's palm, a noiseless thank you for the minute of thoughtfulness.

He wasn't a fortune teller, but his instinct was mysterious. A youthful couple, their faces shining with the bliss of modern cherish, drawn closer to him. Elias, with a knowing grin, gave them a single, idealized white plume – an image of their budding sentiment, a wish for a cherish that would take off.

He wasn't an evangelist, but his words held a calm control. A teenager, his confrontation shadowed by outrage, hammered a folded test paper on the ground. Elias, in a voice bound with involvement, talked of the control of learning from botches, of the significance of picking oneself up and attempting once more. The youngster, his beginning insubordination supplanted by a start of assurance, picked up the paper and strolled absent, his head held a small higher.

Not everybody acknowledged his shrewdness. A few expelled him as a safe unpredictable, an antique of a bygone period. But for those who delayed to tune in, Elias got to be a signal within the urban storm. He advertised consolation to the devastated, direction to the misplaced, and a tuning in ear to the forlorn.

One evening, Sarah, a youthful correspondent, drew nearer Elias. Captivated by his calm nearness in the midst of the chaos, she needed to compose his story. Elias, at first reluctant, in the long run concurred. Sarah went through days meeting him, piecing together the parts of his life. It wasn't a story of amazing accomplishments, but of calm acts of thoughtfulness, of a life dedicated to finding excellence within the standard.

The article, titled "The Road Sage," got to be a momentary sensation. Individuals from all walks of life began looking for Elias, their needs as differing as the city itself. He became an impossible image of trust, a confirmation to the control of human association.

Elias, be that as it may, remained unaltered. He still sat on his drain case, advertising his calm intelligence to anybody who required it. The popularity didn't faze him. He proceeded to discover solace not in acknowledgment, but within the everyday human stories that unfurled some time recently.

One day, a youthful boy, his eyes wide with ponder, drew nearer Elias. "His voice was hardly a whisper when he inquired, "Are you the Road Sage?"

Elias grinned, a warm crease shaping around his eyes. "That depends," he said. "What kind of intelligence are you looking for, a youthful man?"

The boy, clutching a worn drawing cushion, held it out bashfully. "How did I end up a craftsman?"

Elias took the cushion, his eyes softening as he saw the dynamic colors and the unbridled creative energy on the page. He went through the following hour talking to the boy, not almost method or fame, but about the delight of creation, of capturing the magnificence within the world around him.

As the sun started to set, portraying the city in warm tones of orange and purple, the boy skipped absent, his confront radiating with recently discovered assurance. Elias observed him go, a placated murmur getting away his lips. In his heart, he knew that the stories, the associations, those were the genuine treasures.

Short Story
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About the Creator

Abdul Qayyum

I am retired professor of English Language. I am fond of writing articles and short stories . I also wrote books on amazon kdp. My first Language is Urdu and I tried my best to teach my students english language ,

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