The Butterfly Effect- Finale
I rang the doorbell and stood outside, waiting for the door to open. On one hand I was sad that I could not retain my new phone and lost it so soon. And on the other hand, now I had to face my mother—who would go ballistic on me—as it was all my fault. I should have been more careful, while commuting in public, but I was ignorant and foolish, to put it mildly.
The door opened and I didn’t look into her—mother’s—eyes and ran into my room. This behaviour of mine got her more confused and concerned, than what she already was, when she saw me returned home so soon. She also came running behind me to ask for the concerning matter, as she was also freaking out. With a sorrowful face and heavy heart, I told her about all the incidents that took place in the last two and half hours.
After listening to my story, mother gave me a hug and said lovingly, “Why are you so sad, you stupid. You almost gave me a heart attack. I was beginning to imagine much worse things than the theft of a phone.”
Those were the exact encouraging words, which my ears wanted to hear. My spirits uplifted a little, seeing that it wasn’t as big a thing, as I was taking it to be.
Mother spoke again, “Sometimes a small wrong does happen, before the greater good materializes. It was a bad omen, and it has passed now. You just cheer up and see how you would want to get to office, to get the necessary things, you had to pick from there.”
I decided to take my bike now, as I would not have used public transport again, even though, I didn’t have a phone anymore with me, to get flicked.
I drank a full glass of water, took a few minutes to calm my nerves; lifted my back pack, bike keys and the helmet. Within 5 minutes I was on the motor way, riding my way towards the office. Half way through, on the way, my bike suddenly started dangling uncontrollably. The back type had got punctured with a nail, from the metro train construction site, which was on the other of the road.
Thankfully I remain overly attentive, while riding a bike, and since my speed wasn’t too high, I was successful to control the bike and pulled it over to the side of the road.
“Goodness gracious me!” I cried out loud.
In the scorching afternoon heat, I stood there thinking of why, god is testing me so much today. With the hope of finding a puncture shop, I did a 360 degrees scan of the whole area. With no puncture shop in the field of my vision, I had to more from there, but I could not have simply left my bike, by the side and left and hence I started dragging it too, towards the direction I was heading.
After an excruciating, tiresome & hellish journey of three quarters of a mile, I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel; a tyre puncture shop that is. The puncture shop appeared to me as “the first drop of rains, sent from the heaven above; while I was stuck in the middle of a desert”. I wouldn’t have ever felt greater joy of seeing a puncture mechanic, the way I felt that day. I had to forcefully resist my inner feelings, else I would have hugged the man.
He inspected my bike and told me that the tube has been ruptured completely, during my forceful dragging of it, and would need to be replaced. To which I replied with my affirmation to go ahead with the replacement.
To my utter disbelief, he said that he doesn’t have one with him right now, but can get it from the market and fix it. Only catch in it, was that this whole process would take him, no less than two hours. He asked me to take an auto and go, and on my return in the evening, I could pick my bike up.
Although, no matter how good a person he was, ultimately he was just a stranger to me, and my sceptic self didn’t allow me to leave my bike with a stranger. So, I decided to wait there for two hours and get it fixed, before leaving there. For the next two hours, I just stood there waiting for my bike to get fixed. And indeed took him exactly two hours to fix the puncture.
I paid him for his services and left from there, towards my office. The forex person only stays till 5 PM, and it was already 4.30 PM and still, give or take 20 minutes, journey left for me to cover. The tension, in my head was extreme and the frustration & anger was also no less.
Right before my office, there was a big traffic signal. I waited for the signal to turn green, and as soon as it did, I moved ahead to cross it, but to my horrific surprise, a school boy just jumped right before my bike form nowhere, while trying to cross the road. My involuntary reflexes kicked in—which had got sharpened by playing a lot of “Need For Speed” on my computer—and I applied my front disk brakes. The bike instantly skidded and I fell flat on the road, while the culprit “boy” simply crossed the road pretending as if nothing happened.
A few good men came running to me and they lifted myself and settled me on the pavement. One of them even offered me some water, while another one picked my bike from the road and parked it on its stand, on the side of the road.
I was browsed and scratched but fortunately hadn’t suffered with any broken bones. That itself was a point of solace for me, at the moment. I was getting late to collect the forex, so even though not totally fit to ride, I picked my bike and went straight into my office campus. The time was already ten minutes passed five. I parked the bike, at the reserved parking for “disabled”, and ran to the forex person.
Just within the nick of time, right before he was closing the transactions for the day, I reached and collected my forex money of 2000 GBP. After getting the money I called one of my office friends, to request him to take printout of my flight tickets. Also, when he got to know about my accident, he immediately came to me and took me to the doctor. Doctor gave me a pain killer injection and cleaned and dressed all my scratches and wounds.
After all the incidents and ill-experiences, finally I had the two things, I was running to get since morning.
My friend didn’t let me ride the bike myself, while returning home, so he rode it and I was the pillion this time. After having such a horrid day till now, I only kept praying to god not to do anything wrong now, all the way till my home. I thanked him for the drop and sent him off and told my story to my mother, who immediately took me to the nearest temple and made me pray.
The next morning, everything went as planned, without any hindrances; although the immigration officer did raise his eyebrows in suspicion, after seeing the multiple Band-Aids I had on my body.
Since you know the whole story by now, let me explain to you how “Bufferfly Effect” was applicable to it.
1- Only if I had listened to the puncture mechanic:- I would have taken an Auto and, would have avoided the accident, which I had to undergo.
2- Only if I had not decided to take my bike to office:- I would have taken a Cab or an Auto and, I would have avoided the puncture situation completely and the painful on foot journey; not to forget the dragging of my punctured bike. The fore said accident wouldn’t have happened either.
3- Only if I had not gone back to get the ear phones:- I would not have listened to the music so openly on my phone and wouldn’t have invited the phone snatcher to come to me.
4- Only if I had not decided to take the public transport, in the first place:- None of the above would have ever happened and my Samsung Galaxy S2 would still have been with me.
5- Only if I had not missed my office shuttle:- I would have reached office easily, with none of it happening to me.
6- Only if I had not switched my alarm off:- I would have gotten up on time, in order to catch my office shuttle and I could have avoided everything.
7- Only if I had not taken off from office, the previous day:- I wouldn’t have switched my phone off and the same day I would have got my forex and the tickets. I really wouldn’t have needed to go to office at all, on the next day. All of the above incidents could have been avoided.
8- Only if I had not felt confused and depressed:- I wouldn’t have taken a leave from office, to feel better and none of it would have taken place, the way they actually did.
So, now you know that a small change in the initial state of an incident can have a much higher cascading effect on the outcome of incidents to follow, in future.
Please, do share your thoughts and comments as to what do you think of the Butterfly Effect in real life.
Previous Chapters:
Part- 1: Anticipation
Part- 2: The Butterfly Effect- 1
Part- 3: The Butterfly Effect- 2
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