Don't Give Up

   “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 1^st 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 1^st February, 2016.

Reviews

[Joel Crow]

Quite a nice little story. The little bit of ambiguity about the oath makes it intriguing for the reader. One suggestion I would make is that you might hint in some subtle way early on that the narrator is a woman. I didn't even look at your name and thought for some reason it was a man like me, which confused me at first when I came to the ending.
One question: the sentence "All of us rose to wish her." Is that simply short for wishing someone a good morning? I haven't heard that expression before. And that's not a bad thing. I enjoy it when writers of different backgrounds than mine use phrases I'm unfamiliar with.
Keep up the writing.

[Zoya]

Thank you, Joel, for your time and review! You're right with the meaning of that sentence. Wishing the teacher a good morning. I appreciate the review!

[Ashish]

This is something which I like. The most important thing in any writing is to bind the reader till the last and you have done it fantastically.

Thanks for sharing :)

[Zoya]

I am glad that you liked it :) thank you for reviewing Ashish!

[Ashish]

Pleasure is all mine

[Coyote Poetry]

A amazing story. I wanted to read and know more.
“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.”
I liked the above lines. True wisdom shared. I liked the story written and sharing of the incident and present. You did very well. The story took me in and held me to the last word. Thank you Zoe for sharing the outstanding story.
Coyote

[Zoya]

Thank you so much for your kind words Coyote!

[Coyote Poetry]

Was my pleasure and you are welcome.