The modern world is a machine that runs on the friction of constant reaction. It is the silent battle cry o the earth - a static that convinces the individual that to be silent is to be extinct. You are caught in the bustle, moving on your own, relentless, until the silence catches you in the end.
At the threshold of a particular temple, the city noise dies and bells and chants live. Inside, people bring their world to trade for solace. Just outside, sits the Warden.
He has occupied this narrow foot stand for more than three decades, an entire adult life spent handling the dust of the city that refuses to stop moving. He does not know your name and you do not know his Even if he tried to, he simply cannot. He probably does not know it himself.
Unlike most other places of worship where one leaves their footwear outside to be handled by a clamp and a stick, this gentleman uses his hands, bare and calloused, in a constant tactile conversation with the grime of thousands. He takes the shoes of the restless with a clinical detachment, his skin now the same texture as the weathered stone wall he leas against.
He is moody in the way a mountain is moody. He cannot speak and he does not use the signs of the non-hearing as well. He communicates through the weight of his presence. A gentle nod and smile for the familiar; a low guttural grunt for those who fail to understand the boundary he represents. In a world o scripted politeness, his displeasure is a sovereign act.
Even the machine has tried to claim him. Someone has scribbled a phone number in pencil on the stone wall behind him so the city can pay its tribute digitally. It is a jarring sight, the ancient stone forced to carry the data of the new, changing world. The pencil will wear off the stone long before the man leaves his post. Probably another number will take its pace,probable another man will take his place.
Most people are desperate to be heard. This man has spent decades proving that power is found in silence. He does not offer a philosophy.He offers a boundary of the silent fortress.
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