The Old Lantern
(Short Story)
In a small mountain village lived an old woman named Suri. Every evening, she carried a rusty lantern and walked down the dark path leading to the river. She wasn’t strong anymore, and the lantern barely gave enough light to cover a few steps ahead.
One night, a villager asked her, “Why do you bother taking that weak lantern? It hardly lights anything.”
Suri smiled. “It lights enough.”
“But not for the whole path,” he argued.
She answered calmly, “I don’t need the whole path lit. I only need to see the next step. And once I take that, the lantern will show the next.”
The villager frowned. “And what about others who walk after you?”
Suri lifted the lantern slightly. “This small light helps them too. Someone behind me will see the footprints I leave, even if they can’t see my face.”
Years later, travelers often mentioned how easy it was to walk the river path. The stones were arranged neatly. The bushes trimmed. The turns marked with small white pebbles.
People didn’t know who arranged all that.
But those who remembered Suri knew the truth:
A small light carried faithfully becomes a guide for many.
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