The tale called LIFE!

They called me wise when I said little, and a god when I bled in silence. My name once rang like thunder in rooms where power kissed greed on the cheek, but I have lived long enough to learn that thunder never lingers.

I have worn crowns that fit like curses, and held hands that trembled with betrayal even as they fed me figs. I’ve tasted the salt of every ambition, swallowed empires whole just to find the hunger never left.

You think life rewards the loud? No, it humbles the loud and forgets the quiet. It smiles as you climb and sharpens the blade for when you fall. And fall you must? For no man outruns the gravity of meaninglessness.

I buried love with laughter. Chased legacy down alleys lit by ego. And when I found her Legacy, she was just a girl selling echoes of my name for pennies on a street corner where no one stopped to listen.

I built kingdoms in people. I was a monument in the hearts of many, until rain came, the kind that washes away memory and leaves only mud where marble once stood.

Now I sit not broken, but broken open. Not bitter, but brined in the truth that life is a brilliant illusion. A parade of dressed-up nothings. A loud noise, fading into a whisper that only the old and honest can hear.

And I, I have heard it. So take your flowers and your followers. Chase the wind if it soothes your youth. But remember this: Even the sun, in all its glory, must bow to dusk. And in the end, all men return to silence.