On the first night, I prayed for the world to change - for the divine forces of the universe to transform humanity into a species of humane, kind, benevolent beings.
When I opened my eyes the following morning, the news was filled with doom, despair and suffering.
I was bereft.
Why had the gods forsaken me?
I prayed harder that night. I beseeched the gods to hear my petition for a better world, tears welling in my eyes, such was the passion of my request.
War erupted in yet another country the very next day.
I fell to my knees and wept with despair. I was angered by this rejection.
What was I doing wrong?
I railed at the gods. I shook my fists and stamped my feet, hurling the most foul profanities to the heavens, chastising them for such capricious behaviour.
Mass shootings at two schools ensued that same day.
Was I being tested?
Were my words being misconstrued?
I stormed from my home, seeking the fresh air to clear my head, calm my fury.
A homeless man, a forlorn creature all tousled and unkempt, gazed up at me from the confines of a filthy blanket, eyes empty and pale like a winter sky. Gnarled, withered hands at the ends of pitifully thin wrists with palms upturned in silent supplication, trembled in the morning sunlight.
Awareness washed over me, the realisation that this man, this wretched being wasn't unknown to me. I'd passed him countless times in this very location en-route almost daily as I went about the business of being me.
We had never spoken. We hadn't as much as exchanged glances. At least, I don't believe we had. Until now.
Something had happened.
I knew it to be folly but I swear it felt like I'd been spotlighted in a shaft of ethereal silver. It was as if the entire universe was holding its breath just waiting for its principal player to stop on cue, track the wavering beam back to the beggar and drop to one knee, gazing into those helpless blue orbs.
And in that moment I saw it.
Recognition.
Hope stirring in the saline depths, enlivening his face, blinking back the emotion of having been seen for the first time.
And my world did change.
In the instant of recognising my mistaking want for need and stepping outside of my own private universe into the orbit, as a satellite, of someone else's, I was born anew.
The landscape of this vast Pandora's box which had spilled out all the world's ills, every day, every way for as far as our minds could absorb them, had blotted out all colour, painted our doorways and fingernails in dull, light-absorbing blackness to the exclusion of all else.
Until the light in one man's beseeching eyes had triggered the change, ignited the forgotten flame of hope's Phoenix.
My prayer for a planet of humane, kind, benevolent beings had been answered and had begun.
With me.
