Maybe it’s because I couldn’t complete my morning walk today, being slightly under the weather that made me look for another alternative to walking.

I stared at the advertisement: A walk machine! All I had to do was place my still lazy feet on the machine without getting off the bed and the apparatus simulated walking movement while I went back to sleep! This was what I had been dreaming about for years; to exercise without effort. No more fighting sleep, as daylight forced its way into another day. No more searching for walking shoes in the dark. No stretching! No warming up!

No ankle ache after the first round! No thigh pain after the second! Ah! This was ze life! Why had it taken so long for such a machine, I thought dreamily.

 And then my thoughts wandered to my normal walk, yesterday. Walking past my garden  talking to the strays who waited outside with demonstrative greetings, “How was the night you little fellow?” “It was good Bob, there was this fly that bothered me, but then I shifted away from your coffee table, and things were fine! You should clean it more often, you know?”

“There you go!” I said and patted him and his other two friends as they scampered away.

I looked up and noticed the clouds; from around them the sun made silver the edges, “Ah God!” I whispered, “it’s a beautiful day!” “Enjoy it Bob!” the Lord whispered, “I made it for you to see it!”

I walked to the park with a smile, “First round slow!” I told myself sternly, and looked with surprise at tiny new blue flowers that had come up overnight, a koel cried out from a tree, sparrows chirped pretending they were all early birds, “Stop that noise!” I told them sternly, “you’re disturbing the worms!” They chirped louder: Who said birds didn’t have a sense of humour?

The crows were cawing over my head, “Leopard?” I asked, a little bothered.

“No, just reminding you to feed us later,” they cawed happily as I waved at them.

I walked back home later that day flushed not just with the toil of walking, but with the joys of friendship, and fellowship with nature and God!

I look at the machine in the ad and turn away: No contraption can bless me with what I receive with my morning walk, even if I have to look for my shoelace in the dark, or fight a leg pain and a sweaty beard, it is well worth it all!

God given canine friendships, spectacular views and talks with nature: What machine could give all that to me?

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