Saraswati Explains Her Distance

The scholar's breath was failing. His library surrounded him—ten thousand books, forty years of study, a lifetime of seeking.

And there she was. White-clad, veena in hand, eyes like deep wells of knowing.

A SCHOLAR: "You're real."

Saraswati: "I'm always real. You just couldn't see me."

A SCHOLAR: "I prayed. Every day for decades. You never answered."

Saraswati: "I answered constantly. You never heard."

The scholar coughed, blood on his lips.

A SCHOLAR: "Explain. Please. Before I—before—"

Saraswati: "You wanted me to appear. To grant you knowledge as a gift. To pour wisdom into you like water into a cup. That's not how I work."

A SCHOLAR: "But Lakshmi gives wealth. Ganga gives purification. Why don't you give knowledge?"

Saraswati: "Because knowledge isn't given. It's earned. Every book you read, every question you pursued, every night you stayed awake wondering—that was me. I was the hunger, not the food."

A SCHOLAR: "I wanted certainty. Answers. The truth."

Saraswati: "And if I'd given them? You would have stopped seeking. Stopped growing. Become smug with borrowed wisdom. The greatest minds are not those who found truth. They're those who never stopped looking."

A SCHOLAR: "Then I failed. I died without answers."

Saraswati: "You died still asking questions. That's not failure—that's perfection. The scholars who claim certainty have already left me. The moment someone says 'I know everything,' I depart. But you—even now, dying, you're still asking. Still seeking."

A SCHOLAR: "What's the point if I never found?"

Saraswati: "Finding would have ended the journey. The journey was the point. You spent forty years in communion with me. Not through revelation—through search. Every book was a conversation. Every sleepless night was a prayer I actually answered."

A SCHOLAR: "I didn't know."

Saraswati: "You did. You just wanted something more dramatic. Mortals always want the vision, the divine appearance, the unmistakable sign. But I'm not in visions. I'm in the moment before understanding. The space between confusion and clarity. The breath before the insight."

A SCHOLAR: "And after death? Will I understand then?"

Saraswati: "You'll be reborn. With the same hunger, perhaps sharper. You'll seek again. Read again. Wonder again. That's immortality, scholar. Not endless life—endless curiosity. As long as questions exist, I exist. As long as anyone anywhere asks 'why,' I am there."

A SCHOLAR: "I have one more question."

Saraswati: "Ask."

A SCHOLAR: "Was it worth it? The years of doubt, confusion, never arriving?"

Saraswati: "Was the journey worth more than a destination you would have outgrown? You know the answer. You've always known. You just wanted me to confirm it."

A SCHOLAR: "Yes."

Saraswati: "Then you have your answer. Not from me—from yourself. Which is where wisdom always comes from. Rest now. Dream of libraries. And when you return, know that I'll be waiting—not to give you truth, but to walk beside you as you find it."

The scholar died with a smile on his face.

His last thought was a question.

Saraswati considered that the perfect ending.