Destiny is All






Some kind of energy, may be light, but it was more than just light. Had some attracting force, for she wished to meld into it. Had some emissions, for she felt empowered by getting exposed to it. Formed a shape; A shape that by looking at it, you know it is of a human. But you perceive it as something more than a human. Maybe Spirit. Or God; because it certainly was not evil.

Maria felt like it was coming closer. It was so bright that Maria couldn’t see anything else, but it was comforting enough that one could watch it for hours without blinking. While approaching towards Maria, it stopped. It stopped at a place, an inch closer than which could frighten Maria. From that distance, it spoke: “Everything happens because I choose it to happen.”

The Failures

After listening to it, Maria was certain that it was a human voice, and a voice that was familiar. She tried to recognize whose voice it was, but she failed. Maria tried to look closely to perceive its face. But it faded.

After waking up, Maria found herself admitted in a hospital, surrounded by a nurse and her husband. A week ago she was hit by a car and had been hospitalized since.

Soon after gaining consciousness, she started getting angry and sad. Sad because she won’t be able to run in a marathon that she had been preparing for months, angry because it was some kind of energy that was stopping her.

In her forties, this woman had achieved nothing great. Every time she tried to do something new, or adventurous, she had been stopped by circumstances. When young, she had to choose a degree that posed high professional security rather than the field she was attracted to. When she accepted the fate and tried to achieve greatness in that area, she was forced to marry a man she never met. Making peace with her lost independence, when she finally inclined towards getting out of her home, she had to give birth according to her spouse’s wish. Therewith, she got buried into a mediocre life. Howbeit, Maria tried to get out of her mundane lifestyle, but partner’s ambitions and child’s care always tied her. Maria tried to acquire some in-house hobbies, but nothing she could relish.

A New Venture

About a year ago, her son had a graduation ceremony. When Maria went to his institute to attend the event, she found a standard marathon of 26 miles was about to finish just outside the college. As she had never witnessed any such event, Maria waited near the finish line to watch the winners. Every person waiting there cheered with passion and enthusiasm when they got the first sight of the winners. Hundreds of people grooved when they saw runners coming. The whole place was charged with liveliness. It was a glorious moment for the winners, and every following runner who completed the marathon. Every finisher had dryness in their breath and proudness in their eyes. Maria saw an old man approaching the finish line with a bunch of other participants. This man had tears in his eyes, and started crying after finishing the race. Volunteers provided water and other refreshments to him as they were doing for the other runners. Maria went to the old man, helped to find a comfortable place to rest. Maria was very much interested to ask him why he was crying, but she didn’t, because she knew the answer. This must have been one of the greatest achievements for him, and he couldn’t hold the happiness within him.

Those scenes got stuck in Maria’s head. After attending her son’s ceremony, after spending an evening with her family, after thinking about a week, after preparing her mind for a month, she finally unveiled to her family that she is going to run the next year’s marathon. Everybody posed excitement, and they were happy, however the vibes told Maria that nobody took it seriously.

Preparation

After a week of getting online lessons and consulting some athletes, Maria started to hit the road. Her responsibilities towards family didn’t allow her to extract significant time, but she started to steal enough. She ran in the morning every day. A couple of months passed and she started to practise in the evening too. Passing folks on the path would give her warm smiles, and her family too wasn’t limiting her as she never compromised her household work.

Persistence acted in such a way that, Maria, who could hardly run for 10-15 minutes, started running an hour without even slowing down. But she knew that an average runner takes about 5 hours to finish the race. So she had to train herself to run for at least 5 hours without losing too much pace.

Maria made a routine that was helping her to go beyond her capabilities. But, family events would distract her calendar. However, at every celebration, she would eat only the healthy items. Her determination was building her trust and motivation. And Maria was very confident towards finishing the marathon.

It was just a couple of weeks for the marathon. And while coming to home from market, Maria got hit by a car. After a few days of unconsciousness, she woke up, with a dream. A nightmare for her! She found that she has some minor injuries in legs and waist, but the doctors were concerned about the hit she took on her head. Medical authorities advised that Maria should not opt heavy work for next couple of months. All family members agreed to them. Maria too would have agreed to them, if it was not the dream.

Realization

Why do these things happen? You think you are flying, and only at the bottom you realize that you were just falling all along? All our beliefs and faiths crush down just by getting exposed to one more fact? You start to hate the person you loved the most when you find out just one mistake done in the past? Why we start questioning god just after a bad incident? Why our life loses all its meaning when we encounter something that had never thought about?

The dream made Maria think that she never made any choice in her whole life. The situations made all her choices. When she was young, she couldn’t pursue career in her favourite subject because and her parents forced her to choose one with more future scope. She had to marry before she was ready because a man convinced her parents. She wasn’t successful in any of the ventures she tried because some light in a shape of faceless man didn’t allow her. These thoughts made her vulnerable. She felt lifeless. Why did god give her emotions if all her decisions were to be made by the surroundings? And finally when she found something she really wanted to do, she was met with an accident. No matter how random her accident could look, she was convinced that there’s something stopping her.

Despite knowing she isn’t fit to run this marathon, she decides to run. For the whole life, she has been living according to someone else’s wills. For this time, she decided to be stubborn. She announced that she will be participating in this run, and as expected everybody tried to stop her. But she wouldn’t listen this time.

The Marathon

With precautions and having special arrangements for her, Maria stood at the start point. Keeping all the attention to the gunshot was not necessary as this was not a sprint race. She started slowly with all other runners. At the beginning, she felt some tiredness as she wasn’t in her best shape. Maria ran for a few minutes by focusing on her pain points, but then she needed to control her pace, breathing, and heartbeats too. Her hours in sweat helped her run for a couple of hours. Her body too started to cooperate with her; she started to run without putting any efforts. Arms folded and closed to chest were swinging in the same rhythm as the movement of her legs. Her breaths and beats too formed a pattern. She ran for hours in the same manner. Although she had a few sips of energy drink on the way, it was easy for her to recatch the rhythm.

But then, her body started failing. Every part of the body weighed a ton on her legs. She could feel her breathing getting heavier, so heavy that she needed more energy to breath than to move her body. She would have stopped, only if she kept it an option. (And I personally think that we continue to doing the toughest of jobs only if you don’t have any options. We survive the most unbearable pains only if we do not have any escape).

Maria didn’t stop because she forgot that she could quit the race. She continued to run with the weight of whole world on her shoulders. When the light goes, we struggle for a few seconds, but eventually we meld in. In the similar way, she blended with the new environment. Eventually, the voice of her breathing took over the ordinary noise on the road. After that, everything dissolved and she couldn’t hear anything. Her vision too meant nothing. She was watching everything, but nothing reached her consciousness. Maybe nothing was more important than running. It felt like some string is pulling her towards the victory. She knew that the hard part was behind and now nothing can stop her.

When she finally saw the finish line, a tear rolled down her eye, and she couldn’t stop the following tears. While approaching towards the line, she started to lose her consciousness. Everything started to stop and she despite of trying her best, she fainted.  

The spirit appeared again. But, this wasn’t the first time for Maria. She remembers that the spirit is behind all the unsuccessful attempts of her life. Last time the thing told her that it planned everything, and Maria remembers that it had a familiar voice.

The shape that emitted some kind of energy started to come closer. Just like it did for the previous time. And Maria knew that the spirit was going to repeat the same thing, that it has planned everything and it’s the reason behind her failures. But this time, Maria was determined to watch the face behind the familiar voice. She hated this supernatural thing and wanted to yell at it, and see its face so that she can bawl at it every day. As the shape was approaching, Maria was scared but kept her focus right towards it. The white shadow then came enough close that the shape of her facial parts unveiled. More the shapes started to unwind, more it was getting familiar, and finally she saw that the shape had a face exactly like her own.

When Maria woke up in pain and agony, she was told that she had finished the race. Maria had fainted at the finish line.

Conclusion

After watching herself in the spirit, Maria got surprised and couldn’t process. But eventually she recalled the words she had uttered the first time she met – “Everything happens because I choose it to happen.” She then gathered the thoughts that maybe all the failures she faced earlier in her life was because she was not enough dedicated to win. She tried to win every time, but she couldn’t hold herself when the things got difficult. Even she could have left the race unfinished if she ran it in normal conditions. The accident made her ‘will’ unbreakable. Maybe the words were true; everything that happens with us depends on our own wills. In this case, Maria wanted to complete this task more than anything, so maybe that’s why her subconsciousness helped her to get more determined, and maybe she met with the accident because her spirit wanted her to. Maybe Destiny is all but Maybe it’s true that we forge our own destiny.

From the Author: It took me more than a year to write something. Maybe I was not enough determined to share any stories. Maybe this happened because database of this website got corrupted and I lost all my data. But I have collected some of the previous stories and posted them again. I am working again on the website but it will take a lot of efforts from my side. Your support is required more than ever, please share this story if you have like it, and read the previous one if you haven’t. Also, follow this blog on Facebook and Instagram.

Comments

  1. A great read! Very well crafted!!

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  2. Great work!
    Beautifully scripted!!

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  3. Pretty insightful! Looking forward to more power-packed stories and posts......

    ReplyDelete

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