Junior 3rd Prize Winning Story - The New Light

“The New Light” by Reham Iftikhar, International School of Pakistan, Kuwait, is the Third Prize winning story in the junior category of the first biannual Short Story Contest 2019.

The New Light

‘Go! I said go!’

‘I will go, but I won’t stop coming’

She left. But came again. And again. And again...

Until one day, she didn’t come. She didn’t come the next day either. She didn’t come for a week. Two weeks. A month! No sign of her. A whole year past. She still didn’t come. A friend lost forever, probably. Who cares!

I believed she was dead or moved to some other place. I didn’t know. ME, Sarah, her friend for years. I gave up thinking about her. I have always been hot tempered and with her I took privilege of being extra rude. Now that she was gone, I thought that there would not be any more arguments. But instead, without her, my temper grew.

I had her pet rabbit with me. She had some guests and believed her rabbit would get disturbed and annoyed by them. So she gave the rabbit to me. I showed no interest towards it. One day, it dropped a jug of milk. The jug was shattered into pieces when I arrived, and the floor was a mess. I flew in a fine temper. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I threw the rabbit out of my window and didn’t let it back in again.” Go, find your human. I am done taking care of you”.

A week later, I went for a walk outside. Upon seeing a wolf, I decided to turn back. But a pack of wolves had surrounded me before I could move a single step. At first I was too scared to speak. Then I screamed at the top of my voice, calling for help but to my dismay, there was no one around to help me. My hot boiling temper had left me friendless and lonely, as even my neighbours couldn’t take it anymore. But, the rabbit I had kicked out of my house had come to see what was wrong. It looked frightened when it saw the wolves, but gathered some courage and squeaked. The wolves, finding an easy prey, ran after it while I ran away. I got a gun and ran back to the wolves. Scaring them with my gun, I shooed them away. Then I took the rabbit to the vet. Luckily, it was fine. I took it home and smiled as I watched it play. I wondered why it had helped me when I hadn’t helped it.Then I thought that that was what good tempered, kind hearted people would do. I thought about my past. I was definitely not good tempered. I looked at the rabbit. ‘Well, I can be now!’ I thought.

A week later, I saw a child crying. He told me his best friend had died and now he had no friends. I told him that I would like to be his friend. I told him I knew how it felt to lose a friend. He happily called his sister to tell her. She looked at me in silence as I looked back. “You look familiar!” she smiled.

‘You know very well, Uzma.’ I replied, with a bigger smile.

‘You changed...’ she said.

‘Your rabbit changed me. It’s a darling’.

The rabbit came out of my house. When it saw Uzma, it jumped at her in joy. I smiled again. It was kind of weird, how things turned out so well for me, but I am grateful to God, that He showed me light through a petty rabbit.