Medvedev Dmitriy: http://www.proza.ru/2004/09/06-136
The dunes are conversing.
“You have to be steep in this life,” says one. “Do try and climb me. If there’s something not to my liking, I’ll be coming down on you with all of my mass.”
“Yeah, you shouldn’t be afraid to face the sun, then the grains of sand will come to you on their own accord,” Seconds the other.
“And here I fail to grow,” complains a sloping one across them.
“Then keep reaching up, grow unsteadied and taller than the others. Otherwise, you won’t even see it coming before others get onto your ridge.”
So the sloping one keeps reaching, trying hard to become steeper and higher. She gathers each grain of sand. But the first gust of wind knocks everything down.
“Don’t give up,” a third dune advises her. “It’s just wind, so what? Fight it. Look at me and follow my example. I wasn’t born that great either.”
A grain here, a grain there. The small dune aspires to the big ones, wants go achieve the same greatness. She tries, without surrender, fights the wind, but fails to grow.
“How come,” she puzzles, “if those dunes had grown up here. Why can’t I be just as steep?”
So she gathers a grain to another, but how can one collect enough to be great, if one can barely stay a dune. It’s all because the dunes that grew up with the window flow advice her to grow against it.