In the pitch-black night, I trudged along, stumbling over the rough, uneven road. It was full of bumps and bends, thorns and mud everywhere. And I had been struggling along this road for a very, very long time...
I had come from far, far away, sparing no effort, to attend a wonderful, grand gathering. It was so wonderful that it had drawn countless people who, like me, yearned for it with boundless longing.
The gathering would begin at dawn the next day-at that glorious moment when the sun burst above the horizon. Anyone who arrived late would be mercilessly turned away. Tonight was the final stretch, the hardest and most crucial hours that would determine whether I could attend this wonderful, grand gathering. In the boundless darkness, I could still hear the exhausted panting of others who had spent so long struggling toward it, mingled, of course, with a few complaints and cries of hardship. Though I could not make out their pained faces, I could imagine them gritting their teeth and pressing on, just as I was. Now and then, a few indistinct figures swept past me-latecomers who had overtaken me, still moving with swift, sure strides that filled me with envy.
The bundle on my back grew heavier and heavier, weighing on me until I felt I could barely breathe. Inside were the gifts I had prepared for the gathering, the wishes entrusted to me by my family, the care of my friends, and, more than anything, the mounting fear and unease I had gathered while traveling through the dark. Yet on this pitch-black road, I could not even set down that heavy bundle and carefully sort through its contents to decide what to keep and what to discard.
Though the rough road beneath my feet had made