a long, tiresome drive

assalamu aleikum

suppose you are on a long, long drive.

The road is varied, sometimes tortuous and narrow, sometimes smooth and wide. But that too is deceptive, because all of a sudden you come across craters in the road,
or there are steep cliffs or falls around some corners you turn.
It would have meant sudden death, but somehow you are spared.

The drivers around you are reckless, making it hazardous for you.

Recording cameras are installed along the whole route.

Sometimes the driving is slow, when you want to go fast. There are some cyclists in the fast lane, making it doubly dangerous.

Sometimes it is fast, when you need to pull up, and rest in the roadside motel.

It isn't that you aren't able to rest, but it isn't in your hands. The drive mostly makes you apprehensive about the hazards of the next day, so you can't really rest at all. In any case, getting back on the road, you have to soon become concious of the conditions around you.

Of course, you see other drivers, who can rest. Most of them are the reckless ones.

This is one tiring drive.

Along the way, you are asked to stop. There are gifts, money, gold, silver, diamonds, precious stones, but you have to spend precious time from that drive for you to collect these items. You have to do something for these gifts, like shooting at balloons or moving targets, like answering some questions, like performing some specific deed.

These are gifts you won't have time for while driving, but which will come in useful when getting to your destination.

All you do, if you are like me, is drive, drive, drive ...and complain, complain, complain ...about the other drivers, about the fog, about your tiredness, about your physical needs, ...

One day the drive will come to an end, and you will be at your destination, a beautiful city, with everything you have ever wanted, or will want.

At the gate of that city, you have to give a diamond to the gatekeeper, before he will let you enter.

Did you stop to collect that diamond along the way, or were you too busy driving?

Entering the city, you need a bath and a cosy bed to rest, before you go out to explore this enchanting city, and enjoy what it has to offer.

But do have the coins to pay for all this?