Gossip:



He stood at the top of the hill and pondered the events that had conspired to bring him to this point in his career. The wind howled out its rage causing his loose fitting clothes to billow like the sails of a racing craft. He finally loosed his firm grip on the large bag he was clutching and released its contents to the whim and mercy of the elements around him. The feathers were instantly scattered randomly in all directions carried like a foreign potentate on a litter until they finally began to settle all across the countryside seeking sanctuary in the most unlikely nooks and crannies. He then instructed the slight figure that was almost hidden in his shadow to take the bag and gather all the feathers and return them to the bag without missing a single one.

" That is impossible." she wailed in retaliation. "How can I possibly know where the wind has carried them. No matter how hard I might try I could never find them all or even know where they might have carried. What you ask is beyond my ability to accomplish. It is unreasonable. It is cruel and I cannot believe that you could expect me to engage in such a task."

"In the same way that you find this task impossible," he replied, "so too is it equally impossible for you to call back the gossip and slander that you have been spreading that is swept by the wind of waggling tongues into corners and memories that we cannot reckon. The damage that your careless and irresponsible tales have caused to the good name and reputation of undeserving victims can never be completely erased and, like a stealthily spreading disease or cancer, will continue to infect healthy, untainted minds and hearts wherever and whenever the opportunity presents itself. You have much to regret and, God willing, this practice of maligning whoever happens to invoke your anger, by alleging contrived stories and false accusations, will never again occur. Take this empty bag and, whenever you are provoked to strike back against some alleged injury or slight, recall this moment and your inability to perform this task and it will give you the strength and resolve that will enable you to resist the temptation. Go my child and gossip and slander no more."

He watched the tiny figure descend the mountainside for several minutes until it finally disappeared from sight. He followed in its wake, weighted by the agony he felt for those who had been contaminated by this child's lies and fabrications, and uncertain that the lesson he had just demonstrated would have the power to deter her from further repetitions.