Death his Destiny

“Death his Destiny” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Vedant Vikram, JSS International, Dubai, UAE.

Death his Destiny

“This life at the best is an inn and we are the passengers”, said James Howell. With every passer-by in life, we should learn some lessons and implement some on us. It is quite evident from this saying that death is the most distant and ultimate of all human activities and is a Universal truth. However, life becomes miserable for a normal person, who is aware of the time duration for which he is going to live.

This what happen to Richard Brown, a middleclass widower who worked in the metropolitan office of a town. He had no one to care for him, as he had no children and his beloved wife had also left for her heavenly abode around ten years ago. Richard, as I knew him, was strong character with a soft and a gentle disposition. He was popular with the children of the neighbourhood, with whom he used to play in the evenings or the weekends. The children of the area called him Richey Uncle. However, age was catching up on him and he was agile nor energetic to play cricket with them. One fine day on the suggestion of a local lad, Richard went to see the doctor to enquire of his ailment. The doctor, after the medical examination, asked him to carry out few tests including blood test, sugar test and various other pathological examinations, before he could make a final diagnosis and conclude that what is the cause.

A week elapsed and on the day of the appointment, Richard set forth to collect his pathological report. The doctor on seeing the report turned morose and depressed, with a sympathetic tone told him that he was suffering from blood cancer that was in the terminal stage. So grave and hopeless was his condition that he had only three months to live. This was unexpected piece of bad news came as a shock to him. He was petrified, he had just reconciled from the grief of losing his wife. He was very anguished and spent sleepless nights mulling over his fate. He just could not fathom as to why God was so unkind and cold-hearted to him. But time is a great healer and in course of time he reconciled to his fate. Bowing to the wishes of God almighty that knows the best, he donated all his worldly possessions including movable and immovable property as charity to the local orphanage of the town. He also took a retirement from his job and devoted himself to the service of the poor and underprivileged, and the education of the children in the neighbourhood so that by the blessings of the God almighty he could survive a few days long. Two months passed in a jiff and now Richard started counting his days. One fine day he received a call from the same doctor, who apologized for his huge mistake and blunder, telling him that his report had got mixed up with the report of another patient with the same name. His blood report was quite normal and conventional and therefore, he would live a normal life. The news was so excited and elevated Richard, but the thought of having lost everything came as a shock and a trauma, which proved fatal for him and he collapsed clutching the receiver.

Destiny surely is predetermined course of events which in turn predetermines each one’s future or general future. Destiny may be envisaged as foreordained by the Divine or the unfolding through the exertions of human will. Destiny can be otherwise used as a synonym for the words like Karma and Fate. It is the guiding force which makes each one travel through our life and reach what we are destined for, either good or bad. It heavily influences the events in our lives, the decisions we make and who we spend our time with. It takes control over each one’s life thereby that of the entire society or the whole world. Whereas, Death is indeed very certain, but no one can predict as to when, where, how and in what shape it come. We are however unnecessarily afraid of it little realising the truth as echoed by William Shakespeare when he says “All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity”.