cosmic (im)balance

Two brothers lived in the shadow of the Crimson Mountain. Tariq and Ammen, sons of Nazif, keeper of the ancient scales.

Their father was a merchant of truths in a village where lies were currency. People crossed deserts to place their disputes on his scales of brass and iron. To find out what their conflicts were really worth.

Tariq, the elder, learned to count before he learned to run. By twelve, he could size up a man's worth before hearing him speak. Ammen was different. While his brother counted gold, he counted heartbeats. While Tariq measured profit, Ammen noticed the way men's hands shook as they waited to be judged.

"You're wasting our stuff on beggars," Tariq would say. "You're wasting your humanity on ledgers," Ammen would fire back.

Death came for Nazif in their twenty-seventh year. On his final night, he called them close.

"Tariq, as firstborn, you get everything I own. My house. My gold. My standing in the marketplace."

Tariq nodded, feeling a hunger he'd carried since birth being fed.

"And Ammen, you get only my scales. Nothing else."

Ammen touched the brass balance beside his father's bed. Ancient metal, worn smooth by generations looking for answers.

"Use them wisely," Nazif whispered. Then he was gone.

The funeral lasted three days. Before it ended, Ammen vanished, taking only the scales and the clothes on his back.

Tariq counted his inheritance that night. Seventeen thousand gold pieces. Three houses. Contracts with merchants from Damascus to Isfahan. By morning, he knew exactly how rich he'd become.

Seven years passed. Tariq grew his father's business tenfold. His caravans stretched across three kingdoms. He married a governor's daughter. Built a mansion on the highest hill. Everything he touched multiplied.

Yet sleep abandoned him. Food lost its taste. His temper became legendary.

One night, a beggar showed up at his gates. "Tell your master his brother's back," the man told the guards.

The brothers sat across from each other in Tariq's grand hall. Seven years had carved deep lines in both their faces.

"You look like shit," Tariq said, eyeing his brother's rags.
"So do you," Ammen replied, noticing the shadows beneath Tariq's eyes.

"I own half the village now."
"I own nothing."
"So why come back? Need money?"
"I came because it's time."
"Time for what?"
"To finish what father started."

Ammen placed their father's scales on the marble table between them.

From his filthy robes, he pulled out a small iron box. Inside lay a stone, black as midnight, no larger than an olive pit.

"What's that?"

"The weight of a single regret. From a dying man who screwed over his brother."

Ammen placed it on the scale. It barely moved the needle.

"For seven years, I've traveled," he said. "While you counted gold, I collected these."

He produced dozens of tiny boxes. "The remorse of the wealthy who ditched their families. The shame of judges who took bribes. The guilt of merchants who sold children for profit."

One by one, he added small weights to the scale.
Each one named. Each one witnessed.

The scale began to tilt.

"Enough," Tariq said. "What do you want from me?" 
"Nothing. But father's scales need balance."

From his pocket, Ammen pulled out one final box. Smaller than the others. Made of plain wood.

"What's that?" asked Tariq.
"Your inheritance."
"My inheritance is all around you."
"No. That was what Father gave you. Your true inheritance is what you've built yourself."

Ammen opened the box. Empty.

He placed it gently on the opposite side of the scale. The balance didn't move.

"I don't get it," Tariq muttered.
"Put in it what you've become," Ammen said.

Tariq stared at the empty box. His hands shook as he reached toward his chest, like he was pulling something invisible from inside himself.

He held his cupped hands over the box, dropping nothing you could see.

The scale groaned. Then crashed down.

The side with Tariq's offering slammed against the table so hard the marble cracked. All of Ammen's collected weights shot into the air, scattering across the floor like rain.

Tariq fell to his knees, making a sound that wasn't quite human.

"For seven years, I collected the weight of men's darkest deeds," Ammen said, kneeling beside his brother. "The heaviest among them was like a feather compared to the burden you put on yourself every day."

"What have I become?" Tariq gasped.
"Exactly what you wanted. Nothing more. Nothing less."

Tariq didn't leave his room for thirty days. On the thirty-first, he came out, thinner. Quieter.

By midday, half his wealth had been given away. By sunset, his empire had new owners.

Ammen stayed just long enough to see the change, then disappeared again with the scales.

They say Tariq died with less than his father had. But smiling in his final moments.

As for Ammen, some say he still wanders, carrying nothing but those scales and one small wooden box.

What's in the box?
What was always there.

Nothing. And everything.

The universe operates on a simple principle: everything weighs something.

Even nothing. Especially nothing.

The empty spaces we create through ambition.
The hollow victories we stack like coins.
The absence that grows heavier with each success.

This is the law of cosmic balance - that whatever we build outside ourselves creates an equal gravity within.

Perhaps this is why those who reach the pinnacle often speak of emptiness. The scales don't lie - they merely measure what we've chosen to place upon them.

In the end, the empty box is never empty. It contains precisely what we've become. And it weighs exactly what it should - nothing more, nothing less.

Until next week. 👋