Don't Give UpA Story by Zoya “Breaking news:
five dead and twenty-three injured in the F7 203 plane crash; the beautiful
city of Meagrown completely destroyed after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake; new
species of spiders found in Peston; good news! You will be able to cherish your
past and peep into your future through the time machine designed by
world-famous scientists which is said to be completed within the next twenty
years; thirty-five year old man looted and ki...” “How ridiculous
media is! Best known to distort the news and mislead people. Time machine?
Seriously!” I thought to myself as the noise of the juice-maker
triumphed over the sound of the television. It was the year of
2014. I stood there near the window, with my back to the television,
contemplating the view outside. Not exactly contemplating the view, but
something else. A problem, an issue. An issue that should have been solved by
that time. Lately I had been thinking about my future. I wanted to become a successful
person when I grow up. There was just one subject which I liked at school. I
would have been very happy to shape a future out of it. The only problem was my
bad performance at it. I was not at all bright in that subject. This deterred
me and I abstained myself from indulging any further into this. Days passed just in
the same way, with me thinking and thinking, thinking all the time. When a day
came that filled me with confidence to pursue my dream. One fine morning, I sat
by myself in a classroom of forty students. What else could I have done out
there but think, when suddenly the class teacher stormed in. All of us rose to
wish her. She wished back and asked us to sit down. “So today…” she
said,"we are going to look into the lives of many great people who changed
the world with their strong determination to make use of this life and with
their belief to follow their instincts.” The next moment I
was sitting upright in my bed, reiterating the words said by my teacher, in my
mind over and over again. Somehow I had started to feel confident and motivated
to chase my dream. After thinking “again”, I made my decision. It was easy, to
take nothing into consideration but my love towards a specific thing, or a
subject in my case, with which I could spend my entire life, to determine my
future. It was then and there that I took an oath to not give up on my dream
and not to sit idle until my goal is reached. Two years had passed
and I had not yet given up. Day by day I was improving. I had not broken my
oath until then and I never sat idle. In fact on my birthday, too, I was
sitting in the park, reading a book. It was the auspicious day of 1st
February in the year 2016. I could hear the birds chirping, children shouting
while playing, rustling of the leaves of the trees and the water falling from a
fountain. There was no one in the park except the playing children and me. I
was lost in my book when all of a sudden my eye caught a glimpse of a woman
who, a few seconds ago, was nowhere near the place where she was then, and was
walking towards me. I looked up at her and, as a matter of fact, was terrified
to see her looking straight at me. She seemed unwilling to stop in her tracks
while moving in my direction. She came closer and closer and finally stopped
right in front of me. She looked, indeed, a wealthy woman, wearing expensive
clothes, shining heels, and a grin on her face. We looked at each other.
Surprisingly, she looked a bit familiar to me. “Who..o..o.. are.. you…u..?”, I stuttered. Her grin transformed
into a big, beautiful smile and she said: “Thank you.” Then she took the book, which I was reading, out of my hands,
examined it, looked back at me, returned me the book, patted me on my back, and
went away silently. And I sat there on the bench, with my eyes and mouth wide
open in utter astonishment and puzzlement. The woman soon vanished out of
sight. I was extremely awestruck. Thousands of questions popped up in my mind.
I cursed myself for losing the opportunity of asking her name. I could not do
anything but restrain myself from thinking about her and cursing myself for
making this mistake at the same time. I quickly ran home. Days passed, months
passed, and years passed. I encountered nothing new in life. As time went by, I
found myself speeding on the path towards my goal. Almost twenty years had
passed since I took the oath. Everything and everyone had changed, except me. I
remained the same, exactly the same, just a bit cleverer. It was time to put
the hard work, that I had done over the years, into action. I was finally ready
to take my final step. It was the year
2034. We were shifting into our new home. I was stuffing my books into a big
cardboard box, when, I came across a book that acted as a distraction from the
tiresome labour work that I was doing. It was a book of quotes. I decided to
flip through it as a last-minute motivation. As I said earlier, everything had
changed, and that included my mobile phone too. Every now and then it used to
update me with the news doing rounds across the whole wide world, even without
its owner’s consent. The silence that was spread across the room was broken by
a loud, manly voice, which was most probably the news readers’. I was startled.
He began- ”As promised to all the citizens of this world, we
are here, ready with the time machine’s first trial run today which is going to
be telecasted live on television. Don’t forget to witness this run, which will
make history, only on 'WorldWide24*7', world’s most trusted news channel.” This left me in shock.
They had done it. I could never have imagined this. My mobile phone vibrated
and the man’s voice continued to read out the news: “If this run is
successful then the time machine will be open for public-use by the year 2040.” “Knew there had to
be some 'if’s'!” I said to myself and laughed loudly. I went back to the
book of quotes. I had reached the end of the book. Unlike other pages, there
was only one quote written on the last page in block letters which said: “Do something today
that your future self will thank you for.” Suddenly I heard a
sound that broke my concentration. I looked up from my book and saw that my
personal diary was lying on the ground, opened. As I bent down to pick it up, I
read that first line that started my diary-entry for that particular day to
which my diary had opened itself. I read on and on until I finished reading
that page. The day which I thought to be the most confusing day of my life
until the last few minutes, then became cleared of all confusions. I understood
everything. I found my answers to all the questions that drove me crazy at that
time. And then my eyes, that were becoming more and more moist every second,
shifted upon the date written on top of the page. My diary had opened itself to
the diary-entry of 1st February, 2016. © 2018 ZoyaFeatured Review
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