A Deal with the Devil – Advaita Tyagi

A myriad of mere mortal men, since the day they could perceive even the minutest bit of the enormous world around them, all acquired a similar fallacious notion. Ran after money, they did. They thought that if they could gain and gather money, work their fingers to the bone, and become successful, they’d have the entire world at their feet. Oh, how wrong they were! Work was the only thing that surrounded them as far as anyone around them was willing to see.

The bewitching visions of leading plain-sailing, glamorous and deep-pocketed lives they saw in their magic crystal balls, invigorated them to become lifeless workaholics who could spare time for nobody, and as flawed and unreasonable it may seem to you and me, even themselves—

when all was said and done, one day they had it all… or so they thought. These people had become wealthy, affluent, and successful. At the top of the world on a colossal pedestal where nobody could dare touch them. Wrapped in their own impenetrable bubble of life, shielded and protected with solicitude by their wealth— they thought they had it all.

One day, came a wave of unsettling turbulence that let their pedestals hit the skids and their shields disintegrate. An element of life itself, so incredibly important, they had neglected in the course of their existence. Running after the various things in life had compelled them to derelict their own health. A healthy mind, body, and soul practically incalculable of money had been provided to them, and yet they had chosen to repeatedly compromise and abandon it for the sake of labour in the pipe dreams of a satisfactory future that never really did manage to come around. Their forlorn spirits cried in melancholy tears as they watched the mind, which had all of a sudden been wired differently to a degree that it was barely recognizable, make decisions so ruthless, their lives were the scapegoats. Be it making excuses for mere dinner parties with familiars or not going to the doctor for the sake of saving money or even refusing to spend time with their kin, all this had amounted to absolutely nothing in the end.

These were the little sacrifices they made that ended up costing their bodies, spirits, souls, and minds until there was nothing left. Such gullible men are to be found all around us. A deal with the devil indeed— the relinquishment of physical and emotional well-being just for the sake of false assurances of a better future.

– Advaita Tyagi, Delhi Public School, Noida