Hello everyone, you're welcome to my blog today.
Have you ever made a promise to someone and then broken that promise? How did you feel, and how did the person react? Well, today I'll be sharing my story about a promise. It was on a very good day. "Promise you won't check it," Amara said. She made it sound so casual, like someone who walks up to you and asks for a cord to charge their phone. Her eyes did not match her voice at all; she has always had these stubborn and steady eyes, like she always dreamt her heart was going to be.
Her laptop sat right there on the table, blank and quiet. It did not look like something that would change our lives, but we all knew that once we opened it and powered it on, there would be no going back. It would either tell us the exact time, seconds, and date when we would die. That actually hits differently, but I was scared too.
I looked up at her with raised eyebrows. "Don't say it," I thought. It would either make me feel worse or make me feel better. Then there was a pause, the kind of pause that stretches longer than it should, filled with so much tension and nervousness. She whispered to me, "Then I promise too; we would check it together," she said. Then we both reached out our hands at the same time and but couldn't open the laptop. it felt like we had chosen something bigger than fear. That was about a year ago. Well, we all lived with that fear.
After that, it was not quite easy to navigate through life. We joked about it, claiming that we were the brave ones, the ones who wanted to know. We started living life every day like we knew we were going to die the next minute. We would exchange looks and laugh it off whenever we felt pain. Well, imagine living like that. Amara would always say to me, "You are always counting down your life like it is a timer." I would not pretend that I was not scared.
Curiosity is one thing and curiosity made us open that laptop that day and come across that website that said countdown. Well, it felt like a movie that I had watched some time ago. Countdown was actually an app, but this was only for phones. This time, it would tell you the exact time and date when something would happen and you would die. It was more like a possession movie spirit. We were friends, so cute, you know, for someone who loves horror movies like me.
It all happened on a very good Friday. Well, I was just sitting down in my room when that sharp pain hit my heart. I remember the first day that we checked it; I was alone in my apartment, just scrolling through my phone, and then it all came to me: what if you don’t really have much time? It hit differently that day.
I was so scared I felt like passing out, but like a weight, suddenly every plan I had felt unsettling. It felt like I could die at any moment. I opened up my laptop again and looked at the screen. I was not able to open the website because I was too scared. It’s not like I forgot the password or anything. After that, things changed for me. I started to notice that time was moving fast; the days were going by faster.
How often I would say, "Later," like it was guaranteed. I would catch myself staring at my friend when she wasn’t looking, wondering how much time I had to spend with her. It all scared me. I remembered my family, and I didn’t even know how much I had left to spend with them. Well, she also noticed it. She would tell me, "You have been quiet," she said one evening. "What’s going on?" I replied, "Nothing," but deep down inside me, I wasn’t okay at all.
Well, she knew. I never said nothing. She asked me if I was thinking about it. I didn’t answer right away. That was enough for her to know what was going on in my mind. She leaned in and exhaled slowly, saying, "I have been thinking about it too." That was the first crack in both of us. We did not talk about it much. In the process, the way we held each other felt a little longer, the silence heavier than before.
Two weeks later, I came back and found my system up and on. I was surprised. I asked her, "Did you open it?" She said yes, that she did. I asked why, but we promised never to open it. She told me that she could not help herself with that; she could not breathe anymore. Every day, she kept thinking, "What if we were actually wasting our time?" What if we were running out of time? We didn’t even know what the time was. At that moment, I stepped closer to her and I didn’t even trust myself to calm her down because I wasn’t calm. So I asked, "Did you check it?" She nodded. Yes, I did. The room felt a little bit smaller and choked up at that moment.
I asked her what exactly was the outcome. She looked up at me with eyes that were uncertain and glossy. "I almost did," she said. "I didn’t activate it." I thought about the promise we made to each other never to check it. I remembered that if I eventually opened it and checked it and saw the numbers, I would not remain the same again; I would automatically become someone who is just waiting for the end. I let out a breath before I thought she had broken her promise to me. So, I picked up the device and held it to myself.
I told her I had also wanted to check it so many times myself, but I always remembered the promise we made to each other that we were not going to check it because if we do, our lives will never remain the same again. I am glad she understands. It was my most prized possession at that moment, but I carried the laptop to the kitchen, ran water over it, and made sure it was drenched and damaged beyond repair.
Then I tossed it into the trash. After that moment, I caught her looking at me with wide eyes. She said, "You didn’t have to." I told her I had to; what we share is more important than knowing the time that we are going to die. The fact that we made the promise to each other never to check it, I wouldn’t want to put either of us in a compromising situation that would break our promise to each other, and our friendship would never remain the same again.
I still have that feeling for real after a whole year. I asked her to promise me again. I reached out for her hand and held it close to me, and for the first time in a long while, the future didn’t feel like something measured. It didn’t feel like something we were counting down to. We lived life like every day mattered and made sure that we were happy.
Some promises, when broken, would destroy friendships and make two people who have loved each other for a very long time never see each other the same way again. Let’s always learn to keep our promises and avoid anything that will make us go against our promises, just like Amara and her friend.
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