The tenth floor of one of the top companies in the country was as busy as always, even before the work day had officially begun and Karan entered the floor in a terrible mood. As he walked towards his cabin he thought about the fight he had the previous night with his girlfriend Deesha, which was the reason for his current mood.
They have been together for five years and they had fought multiple times in the past, but it felt like the fights have grown bigger and more frequent in the recent times. Last night the argument started very small, he had been late for their dinner date at home. He would have been early but he got caught up in the last minute about closing an important deal. He didn’t think much about it, he knew Deesha would understand.
So, he went home with her favourite cheesecake, which is his go to choice whenever he needed to apologise. When he explained about the situation at the office, about how the client had called them in the evening to finish up the deal early. She didn’t say anything and just sat there on the couch. He apologised and presented the cheesecake, when she didn’t reach for it, he placed it on the coffee table in front of her. After staring at the cheesecake for a few seconds, without another word she stood and tried to leave the room.
When he asked her, if she’s not even going to eat the cheesecake was when the fight started. They were arguing back and forth for a long time, a really long time as she had many complaints about him. Apparently, he was not spending time with her anymore, he was being obsessed with his work and doesn’t have any concern about her or their relationship. When he replied in anger the argument went in circles. Finally, she looked at the cheesecake and looked at him.
“You always buy me cheesecake. Do you even remember that I’m lactose intolerant, I was diagnosed two years ago. Do you even care anymore?” she said in a bitter voice and went into the bedroom.
They hadn’t spoken with each other that morning when he left for work. He felt guilty about forgetting her diagnosis. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about her, he did care about her, he loved her, though he didn’t know how to show it to her. He sat at his desk and tried to push the thoughts away as he tried to concentrate on his work.
Around noon his desk phone rang, when he picked it up it was the Chairman of the company, on the other side and he called Karan to his office. After he knocked and entered the room the Chairman asked him to take a seat, once he did, he started speaking.
“The clients were very impressed with the closing of the deal. They have been praising about your work non stop and I know they are one hundred percent true.”
Though he felt happy about the compliment Karan responded humbly “I just did my job, Sir”
“So, Karan there has been a consideration about you going on for the past few months.” The Chairman said and paused.
Immediately Karan felt tensed, was he in trouble, or was he getting fired, a thousand thoughts ran through his mind.
“You are an important part of our team and we want to reward your hard work. We are promoting you as one of the Directors of this company” Chairman said with a smile.
Karan gawked at him in surprise “Are you serious, Sir? I don’t think I’m ready for such a big position.”
“You have been our Project manager for the past four years. We have all seen your work and I wasn’t lying about the clients praising you. Not only them most of your clients are always appreciating your work. You are more than ready for this new position than you think. All you have to say is a Yes.” The Chairman said and leaned back in his chair while looking at him with expectation.
This was a huge step forward in his career and it was a no brainer to answer. But he hesitated at the memory of the previous night fight, Deesha complaining about him being more obsessed with work and not caring about her or spending time with her. He knew she wouldn’t be most excited about his promotion. He cared about her, but he cared about his career too. If she didn’t understand he would try his best to make her understand.
With a resolve he looked up at the Chairman and enthusiastically said “Yes.”
That evening he was in a far better mood than he was, when he left for work. He wanted to make up with Deesha first, before telling her about his promotion. When his mind automatically went to cheesecake, he berated himself. After thinking for a while, he thought about an expensive wine they both liked and purchased it on his way home along with some flowers.
When he went inside the house Deesha was sitting in her usual spot, watching TV. She was home early, from her work. He went and sat beside her holding the flowers in his hand.
“I know you are angry at me. I’m really sorry for missing our date night. I know I’m more focused on work lately, but I shouldn’t be compromising my time with you. I’m sorry, Honey” he said in a soft voice.
Deesha looked up at him and after a second with a small smile she took the flowers from him.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Yeah” he nodded his head
“Good, we have leftovers from last night in the fridge, as we didn’t eat anything. I don’t know whether, it’s still good.” she said side eyeing him.
“Of course it would be good. Look I brought our favourite wine, it would go great with the food. Let’s go eat” he said in a cheerful tone and dragged her to the kitchen.
After eating and drinking for a while, when they were in their second glass of wine Karan started the topic about his promotion.
“You know something huge happened at work” he started slowly.
“What happened?”
“This afternoon the Chairman called me into his office and offered to make me one of the Directors of the company” he said excitedly.
Her eyes went wide at the news “It is huge. Well, what did you say?”
“I said yes, of course” he said like it was the obvious choice.
She nodded her head slowly and gave a thin smile before saying “Congrats, it’s a great news.”
Karan eyed her suspiciously “Are you not happy that I got this promotion?”
“Of course I’m happy for you. I know you work hard at your job and you deserve this promotion,” she paused for a moment before continuing “but to be honest, we have been having a lot of problems lately and you have been spending less and less time at home, with me. This new promotion is great but I’m afraid it would also wedge a bigger gap between us.”
“Honey, I know I have been busy with work lately. But this promotion is the result for all of those hard work and due to this promotion, I don’t have to work that many hours like I did in my previous position. We will spend more time together and with new job comes more pay which means, we can go on vacations, we could buy a house.”
He took her hand in his “I know you think my job is important to me, but you are important to me too and I would never lose both. I promise.”
That night they both went to bed, together, happily in each other’s arms.
******
The next day morning when Karan woke up, he felt something was different, the first thing he noticed was he was alone in the bed, Deesha must be in the bathroom or kitchen he thought to himself and opened his eyes. That is when he realised everything around him was different. He wasn’t in his bed or in his room. It was a completely different room than when he went to sleep the previous night.
Thinking he was dreaming and still asleep, he stood up to look around. There were pictures of him and his family in the wall, but there was not a single picture of Deesha in any of them. When he checked the things scattered on the desk next to the bed his hand slipped and hit his forearm in the corner of the desk, as he winced in pain he froze for a second. If he was dreaming, he wasn’t supposed to feel any pain in the dream. To check again he pinched his hand and it ached, not believing it yet, he slapped himself across the face and when it hurt like hell, he realised the truth.
“Wait is this real?” he asked himself.
He wondered how he came to this unfamiliar place. He went out of the room and looked around. It seemed like he was in an expensive looking three-bedroom apartment, while he was looking around frantically, he heard the doorbell. He slowly crept near the door and looked through the peephole only to find Dev, his best friend and coworker.
He quickly opened the door, after Dev came inside, he didn’t allow him to talk.
“You are not dressed yet? The movie starts in half an hour, hurry up.” He said in a lazy tone as he went and sat on the couch.
Karan went and stood in front of him and asked “Dev, where are we?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know where we are. What is this place?” he asked his friend in confusion and anger.
“Oh man! Did you get drunk last night?” Dev stood up and pushed him towards his bedroom.
“Go and take a shower, it will help you clear your head.”
Karan pushed his hand away “I’m not drunk. Yes, I had a couple of glasses of wine, but I wasn’t drunk enough to not remember going to an unknown place.”
When Dev looked at him doubtfully, he continued “I’m serious last night I was home having dinner with Deesha and we went to bed together. Now I woke up in this new, unfamiliar place. I don’t know who did this,” and a sudden realisation hit him, “Oh my god! Deesha will be home alone. What if something happened to her? I should go home”
When he hurried towards the door, Dev grabbed his hand to stop him.
“Karan, this is your home. You bought it two years ago, don’t you remember?” Dev asked him in a concerned voice.
“What? I didn’t buy any house last year. I was planning to buy a house soon, when I got promoted as Director yesterday, but I didn’t do it yet. Deesha and I are still renting the house that we moved in together three years ago.”
“You didn’t get promoted as a director yesterday, Karan. It was three years ago and you did buy this house two years back, I know that for sure because I was with you when you signed the papers.”
Karan didn’t believe a word that came out of Dev’s mouth, he was confused. The only explanation was this was an elaborate prank, they were pranking him and he wanted to find Deesha immediately.
“I don’t believe you,” he said and walked out of the apartment in barefoot once he was outside, he realised he didn’t have his car keys, wallet, phone or anything on him. When he was looking around trying to think what to do, Dev came behind him.
“What are you doing Karan?” he asked in a tired voice
“I’m going home to Deesha.”
“You can’t go there. It is not the right time.”
“Please, I have to see her. Take me to her. I want to know if she is well.”
“Fine. I will take you, but you have to go back up to your apartment and get dressed properly. You can’t go in front of her looking like this.”
“I’m not going back in there. It’s not my apartment.”
“I’m telling you it’s yours. Just come back up.” Dev said in an exasperated voice and dragged him back to the apartment.
Karan finally agreed to get dressed and they got in the car to go back to his home. Except the place they arrived was not the home he lived with Deesha, they were in a completely different part of the city.
“What are we doing here?” he asked Dev confused.
“You asked me to bring you to Deesha, here we are. If you changed your mind we can happily go back.” Dev replied in a calm voice.
“No, no, wait.” Karan said and quickly got out of the car.
“Just knock on the door man. But if things go south, we are leaving immediately.” Dev said as he got down from the car and they both walked towards the front door of this new house.
When he knocked on the door he was still confused about why they were there and what was happening, but all of that vanished when the door opened and Deesha appeared in front of him. He let out a sigh of relief and lunged forward, wrapping her in a tight hug.
“Thank god, you are alright,” he said as relief flooded his heart.
Deesha was still for a moment, before pushing him away, “What are you doing here Karan?” she asked him in confusion and anger.
Karan was stunned at her cold voice and demeanour “I don’t know what happened. When I woke up, I was in a different place. Dev keeps saying it’s my place, but…”
She held up a hand “I don’t understand what you are saying and honestly, I don’t care. So, just leave.”
Dev interrupted hurriedly “At least hear him out once.”
“I don’t want to. I’m getting married in a week. There is nothing I want to hear from you.”
“What? What do you mean, you are getting married?” Karan asked her in shock. “You are my girlfriend.”
“What the hell is your problem. We broke up two years ago” she replied angrily.
“No! I never broke up with you. I would never lose you.”
“You lost me two years ago Karan. Just leave.” She said pushing him out the door and shutting it in his face.
He stood there dumbfounded, in front of her door, not understanding anything that was happening.
“I told you this was a bad idea. Let’s go.” Dev patted him on the shoulder and turned to leave.
Karan stopped him and asked in a disbelieving voice “What does she mean by we broke up? When did it happen?”
“You guys broke up two years ago. One year after you got promoted as the Director.” Dev told him showing the year on his phone calendar.
“Wait, has it really been three years since then?” he asked him confused.
Dev later dropped him at his new but apparently two-year-old apartment and left. He slowly walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed. He was unable to think clearly about anything. He went to sleep last night, at his rented house with his girlfriend, while being happy and excited about the huge next step in his career last night. But now he had woken up three years later and he is in a new apartment, while his girlfriend is getting married to someone else in a week. He didn’t have a single clue about what to make out of this.
He spent the next week, holed up in his room, thinking about what to do and next thing he knew, it was the day of Deesha’s wedding. He restlessly wandered around the apartment all day, when he opened the nightstand to look for something, in the second drawer there was a picture of Deesha stashed inside.
As he stared at the picture for a few minutes, a slow maniacal laugh tore through his lips. He suddenly lost the will to do anything, walking out of the apartment he started wandering around aimlessly. After sometime his feet started hurting and he finally sat on a roadside platform. As he sat there holding his head in both his hands, he felt a movement on his left side and someone sat beside him, on the platform.
“You seem to be having a rough day. Is everything alright?” The man next to him asked him in a soft voice.
When he didn’t reply, he asked again “Are you okay?”
Karan turned to look at the man “No, I’m not okay. Just yesterday I had everything, a girlfriend I loved more than anything, the home we shared, the life I dreamed. But today I have nothing and people are saying it was not yesterday, but it has been three years. After all this if you want to know I’m alright, then let me tell you. I’m definitely not alright.”
As Karan sat there breathing heavily after his sudden outburst, the man smiled at him.
“You say she is the one you love more than anything, but I don’t think it’s the truth.”
“Of course it’s true. You don’t know me.”
“Oh, on the contrary I know everything about you, even the part you don’t know about yourself. You want to see that?” the man asked him.
As Karan looked at the man confused, he produced a tablet in front of him and a video started playing. It showed him, his life for the past three years. He looked at himself in the video, him making choices that would change both of their lives. Karan in the video started losing himself in his new job, started ignoring Deesha little by little, their fights and disagreements increasing in numbers day by day. He saw himself breaking the promise he made to the woman he loved and he saw her finally walking away from him. He couldn’t watch it anymore and pushed the tablet away.
“I didn’t know things would turn out this way. I didn’t know she would leave me. I didn’t know” he said sobbing hard.
“Well, what do you want to do now?” the man asked.
“I don’t know. I want my life back. I want Deesha back.”
“If given a chance, would you change what happened?” he asked Karan.
Karan looked up at him eagerly, by now he knew the man was someone mystical, if not he wouldn’t have his whole life in a little tablet.
He asked the man pleadingly, “Of course, I would do anything to change this. Please help me.”
“If you want to change the past you have to make a wish. But you can’t do it just anywhere, you should do it in a specific place.”
The man then proceeded to direct him to an abandoned house in one of the quiet areas of the city and he was now standing in front of the water fountain which was located behind the house as mentioned by the man. He took a coin from his pocket and looked at it.
“God! I hope this works.” He muttered to himself and closed his eyes to make the wish, “I want Deesha back, I want to change what happened in the past three years. Please help me, I would do everything in my power to change this.” After making the wish he tossed the coin into the fountain just like he was instructed. Suddenly everything went blank and he blacked out.
****
When he opened his eyes, he was sitting in front of the Chairman of his company, he didn’t understand what he was doing there. Then the Chairman started speaking.
“You are more than ready for this new position than you think. All you have to say is a Yes.”
Once he said those words, the realisation hit him. This was the moment that changed everything, he understood this decision was the one that changed the trajectory of his entire life and now he had the chance to change it.
He looked up at him, “No.” he said clearly without any hesitation.
His boss was taken aback, “Are you sure? If you want you can take some time to think about it and get back to us later.”
“I’m totally sure. In fact, I quit.”
“What? Are you kidding? You are one of our best employees, why would you want to suddenly quit?”
“That is the reason I’m quitting. I know what I will lose if I keep prioritizing my work over other important things in my life.” He stood up to leave.
The Chairman stood up along with him, “Karan, calm down for a moment. You, are an asset to our company, I don’t want to lose you. If you feel over pressured in the job, we could work something out. We will provide you with whatever you need to make your work life here to run smoothly.”
“There is nothing here that I want. Not anymore. I’m sorry.” With a final apology he exited his boss’s office.
Karan felt finally free, he went home as fast as he could. Deesha wasn’t back from work as it was still the middle of the day. He waited for her excitedly, to tell her his news. When she finally came home in the evening, she was surprised to see him home this early.
“Are you sick?” she asked him worried, “You wouldn’t be home this early otherwise” she asked him forgetting about the fight from previous night.
He smiled at her “No honey, I’m not sick. I thought about our fight last night and I have been obsessed with my work. I didn’t mean to make you feel like any less of a priority. You are the most important person in my life and I don’t want to lose you.”
“Oh! you would never lose me, Karan.” She said with a smile.
“I know and I don’t want to, that is why I quit my job.”
“What?” she asked him, shocked by his announcement.
“Yes, that job was taking me away from you and I would never let it happen.” He said confidently.
“Karan, I never wanted you to quit your job for me. I know how much you love your job. I just wanted you to spend a little more time with me. Treat me a little more important than your job. But I never wanted you to lose your job over me,” she said in a desperate voice.
“No, I like my job, but I love you. Don’t worry, I will find some other job that will be more apt for me. I promise.”
She smiled and hugged him.
****
Once again, he woke up in a new apartment all alone, only this time the apartment looked a lot less fancy and expensive. It was a dingy one-bedroom apartment. He couldn’t believe even after changing the past, his future still did not change, but got even worse than before. When he got up, he was surprised to see the man from the other night sitting on his desk.
“What are you doing here?” he asked him as he got up from the bed and walked out to the living room. There was a wedding invitation stuck to the refrigerator. “Great!” he exclaimed.
The man followed him out as he replied calmly, “I thought you might be having questions and I didn’t want to waste both our times, so I came here directly.”
“Of course I have questions. I did everything to change the past. I even quit my job and yet she still broke up with me. Not only that, now I’m broke apparently,” he said in an exasperated tone.
“Oh! You are mistaken. She wasn’t the one who broke up with you this time. It was you.”
“What? I would never do that. I would never leave Deesha. She is the love of my life. Why would I break up with her?” he asked angrily.
“Want to find out?” the man asked him waving the tablet at him.
Once again, the video started playing, showing another version of those three years. They were happy for a while in the beginning. He was spending more time with her, made her dinner every day, took her out on dates, while also searching for a new job. But as the days went by the more time, he spent jobless, the more he became depressed. Deesha was there to support him emotionally and financially, but he became more and more irritated by her. He started resenting her, blaming her for his current situation, always picking up fights and one fine day the fight became so big, he walked out on her.
“Did you see what happened?” the man asked him.
“Yes, but I don’t know what else to do. If I keep my job I lose her, if I quit my job I lose her again. What am I supposed to do?”
“Do you understand what is your problem? You are always thinking about yourself, what you want, what you don’t want to lose. Have you even tried to consider what Deesha wanted. She has been telling you the whole time what she wants from you but you ignore everything she says, to do what you want and then you sit there and complain about not knowing what to do,” the man glared at him after finishing his monologue.
Karan blinked at him in surprise, finally pieces clicking in place, “Do what Deesha wants. If I do that, will everything go back to normal?”
The man shrugged “Only one way to find out,” and Karan ran out of there as fast as he could.
****
When he opened his eyes this time, he wasn’t shocked to be in his boss’s office. He already knew what to do this time.
“You are more than ready for this new position than you think. All you have to say is a Yes.”
Once, his boss finished speaking he cleared his throat, “I really appreciate this offer, but I’m getting a little overwhelmed at work. I would be happy to take up this position if we could make some adjustments regarding my work,” he said calmly.
His boss though seemed surprised agreed with a smile.
That evening when he went home and shared this news with his girlfriend, she was extremely happy for him.
“I’m sorry if I have made you less of a priority lately. I will never do that again. I have talked to my boss. I won’t be working on weekends anymore, no unnecessary overtime, I will spend as much time with you. I love you and I want you to know that.”
Deesha looked up at him, chocked up in tears, “I love you too.”
The next day when he woke up, he half expected to wake up in a strange bed all alone once again. But he woke up in his own bed with Deesha cuddling him. A happy laugh escaped him.
After a long time, he cooked breakfast for his girlfriend and they ate together. After dropping her off at work, he went to his office. In the evening, he stopped at a restaurant to pick dinner for both of them. When he exited the restaurant with the food a familiar voice stopped him.
The man was leaning against the wall of the restaurant, “You seem happy,” he said.
“I am, thanks to you.” Karan smiled at him.
The man nodded “I hope you don’t mess up this chance,” he said and started walking away.
Karan called out “Who are you exactly?” when the man kept walking, he asked again, “At least, tell me your name.”
The man stopped and turned “I have many names, but some people like to call me Destiny.”
With a final wave, he kept walking.
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