Samuel took one deliberate step forward and paused, and then he took another one forward before pausing. Each step taken was slow, deliberate, calculated. In his clasped hands was a rosary necklace, and his thumbs kept moving one bead after another as he took each step, his pace and rhythm unaffected.
He had been walking like this for the last six hours, from the dawn of first light till now, roughly the middle of the day. Beads of sweat had gathered along his clean shaven head and dripped off to the sides from the edge of his eye brows. His was chanting non-stop under his breath; if one stepped closer they would hear the mantra that he was repeating to himself over and over.
The midday sun beat upon him, heating up his body. Perspiration soaked through his saffron robes, the attire of those in his order.
It was a pilgrimage of penance. To walk for nine and forty days at the given pace, from sun up to sun down, stopping to rest only where his feet land at the end of the day, eating only what the charitable passers-by were willing to give.
In another life, he had been a very successful banker. He made a killing during the early 2000s, but when the 2008 came about, the accounts and hedge funds under his charge lost nearly sixty percent of their value from the massive financial collapse. He was a part of the problem then, for he had constantly pushed the very financial products that caused the fall in the first place. For a while, he managed to get away with only a small penalty through the loss of his job, but as the days went by, his unemployment and guilt got to him.
And that was when he joined the order. The head abbot suggested he take the pilgrimage of penance first before becoming a full-fledged member.
(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 13-Jan-2014 21:06:10)
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