Robin S. Sharma - Secret Letters of the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

MY WORDLESS GUIDE was moving quickly ahead of me, as

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS you find yourself wishing

THE TAXICAB HAD MOVED from the highway onto an extraordinarily

JULIAN HAD NOT GIVEN ME a list of the places

THERE HAD BEEN MOMENTS WHEN, moving around Istanbul, I felt

I HAD TRIED TO REACH JULIAN several times while in

THE ITINERARY THAT JULIAN had sent me didnt cover the

WHEN I WAS FIVE, my father took me to my

WHILE I WAS IN SPAIN, Julian had sent me some

AFTER MY TIME with Mary and Angus, I flew from

NOTHING COULD HAVE BEEN more in contrast with Shanghais glitzy,

I WAS STANDING OUTSIDE the most magnificent building I had

M Y WORDLESS GUIDE was moving quickly ahead of me, as if he too disliked being down here. The tunnel was damp, and dimly lit. The bones of six million Parisians were entombed in this place

Suddenly the young man stopped at the entranceway of a new tunnel. It was separated from the one we had followed by a piece of rusted iron fencing. The tunnel was dark. My guide moved the fence to one side and turned into the blackness. He paused and looked behind at me, making sure I was following. I moved uncertainly out of the anemic light as his back disappeared in front of me. I took a few more steps. Then my foot knocked against something. A wooden rattle filled the air, and I froze. As I did, light flared around me. My guide had snapped on his flashlight. Suddenly I wished he hadnt. The gruesome orderliness was gone. Bones were everywherescattered across the floor around our feet, cascading from loose stacks against the walls. The glare from the flashlight caught on waves of dust and tendrils of cobwebs that hung from the ceiling.

a cest pour vous, said my guide. He thrust the flashlight at me. As I took it, he brushed past me.

What I began to call out.

Before I could finish my question, the man snapped, Il vous rencontrera ici. And then he was gone, leaving me alone, fifty feet underground, a solitary human being standing in a sea of the dead.

I T WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS you find yourself wishing was over before youve got even ten minutes into it. It started when my eyes opened and I noticed an alarming amount of sunlight seeping in under the bedroom blinds. You know, an eight-a.m. amount of lightnot a seven-a.m. amount of light. My alarm had not gone off. That realization was followed by twenty minutes of panicked cursing and shouting and crying (my six-year-old son did the crying) as I careened around the house, from bathroom to kitchen to front door, trying to gather all the ridiculous bits of stuff Adam and I needed for the rest of our day. As I pulled up in front of his school forty-five minutes later, Adam shot me a reproachful look.