"Dream" is based on a very intelligent boy chasing his dreams who finds out how evil and crucial the world is.
Dream
Raman climbed up on the couch in his house’s
hall and mimicked
space launch sounds like zooooooo… with the rocket toy
flying with his hands gliding through in the air like a 4- to 5-year-old
would. After all, he was a tiny kid with an enormous dream of going to
space, though It was not what his parents and his 12-year-old sister wanted.
His sister, Tina, teased him so much about his dream saying that only a few of
the luckiest people can go to space, which is only about 644 people.
But he was not someone who would give up so easily, he
started to study astronomy and geography taught in the 10th
class in the 5th class only. This made clear to his parents
that he was not only dreaming but also working hard for his dream and thus
they talked to Raman’s sister and encouraged her to support Raman achieve his
big dream. He was determined to explore the universe because he had many
questions about the universe that world-class researchers and scientists had
not yet answered. Some of his questions were about aliens, some about infinity,
some about time, etc.
Although there were still no answers to such questions,
there were many research papers and documentaries about them. So, Raman started
to study them. He studied them while eating, playing, walking and any other
activity you could think of.
After around 5 years of studying astrology, he almost had
around 50-60 books about them out of which only one was left to study which was
about infinity. Raman intentionally saved this book for the last as it was his
favourite topic that he was most interested in. He had also watched
documentaries by famous astrologists and theorists. He also found them very
interesting which was exactly the opposite of what other children
including his sister wanted and liked. Most children his age chose to live in
their comfort zone and everything except study and determination. We can take
his sister as an example, she got such a low percentage that she had to
take extra classes in her school even though, she was not suffering from any
mental illness. His obeying and sincere still naughty
brother on the other side got an average percentage but when it came to math
and science, everyone got only one word from their mouth, which was Oh my god.
80 out of 80 in math, 79.99 in science. When someone rolled
their eyes at his mark sheet, no one was very interested and found him an
average student, but as soon as they got near the scores in science and math,
they were so amazed that they hopped out of their chairs, making a completely
unexpected face.
One of his friends, Shashank was able to see his
capabilities and he encouraged him more than anyone. Although Raman got superb
numbers in science, everybody praised him, except for one child in the whole
school, Shashank. Shashank told him to imagine that he was left with only 0.1 per
cent in achieving his dream of exploring space, why would someone not
praise his best friend after achieving a fantastic milestone, Shashank was not
his best friend but his real friend and a friend like him always helps his
friend in achieving anything, it could even be going back in time.
Raman spent most of his time with Shashank talking and
giving information about space and time which was found interesting by
Shashank. While Raman was with his friend, time passed by so quickly that after
around 6 study periods, each of about 40 minutes, he felt like only 1 period
was over.
One day, after he reached home from his school, he got off
the bus waving a polite bye to his bus driver, hostess and his friends. As he
walked by the 2 blocks down the streets of his residential colony, which was a
walk of about 10 minutes, he saw everyone in his colony awkwardly staring at
him still, he felt like they were either arrogant or proud of something. He
opened his house's door and saw his sister Tina, his father and his mother who
shouted ‘surprise’ scaring Raman with a ticket to Thailand and an invitation
letter towards his dreams, the invitation to the International Astrology
Olympiad (IAO) organized by ISRO, the space organization of India which
recently launched a rover to the South Pole of the moon, setting a new
achievement in human history. After a few minutes, Raman started to understand
things slowly getting out of the shock.
After some days, he
researched the Olympiad and found out that only 6 of the luckiest people were
selected from every country to compete in this, this put him in a feeling of
pride, and goosebumps started to rise throughout his hands. The Olympiad
was scheduled to take place on the 20th of October, he had exactly
40 days to prepare for the ultimate challenge, after all, the organization was
giving a scholarship to the toppers of this competition.
He took a break from school for these 40 days and decided
to hire a personal astrology specialist to help him study it the whole day. For
the first time in Raman’s father’s life, he felt proud of his son and his
dreams. Raman’s sister on the other hand, Raman’s sister was not happy about
this as no one was giving her any attention, not because she was old enough to
take care of herself but because of Raman’s achievements according to her
thoughts.
She decided to make herself trouble in the path between
Raman and Raman’s dreams. She now would trouble Raman in concentrating on his
studies. She made awful and disgusting noises and sometimes created a situation
in which the whole family would have to get involved. She would tire Raman so
much by giving him offers to play frisbee, football, badminton, etc. And after
all, he was a child like all others and craved to have fun, but, not over his
dreams.
He soon realized what was going on with him and took
serious action. He covered his whole room with soundproofing walls and locked
the room 24/7. He had every facility that a normal boy would need to study this
hard- a bathroom, a bed, a study table and that’s it. Tina would still keep
knocking on Raman’s door all day, this irritated the boy so much sometimes
that he started crying. 24 hours of concentration except for sleep with
the most irritating sister in the universe. This action of his discouraged Tina
and thus, after asking herself the millionth time ‘Is she doing right’, she
finally came to her senses.
Now only 5 days were left for his exam and guess what, he
slowly started to forget things that he had learned in these 35 days when he
gave his mock tests. Under pressure, his brain was already fried and now it was
going to rot due to anxiety and confusion. At this moment, his coach was also
not helping him because he had been paid just for the teaching, not for the
mentorship and no one in the hell of a universe works more than he is paid for.
His parents are also not very experienced in education. Finally, someone came
to his mind after thinking for about 27 minutes, yes, don’t mind, he was very
time-conscious. The person who came to his mind was Shashank. After so many
days of living in a single room, he got out in the sun, Shashank’s house was
about 2 kilometres from his house, roughly a walk of 26 minutes. He got out, and everybody surprisingly saw him walk out of the entrance to his house as they saw
him step out of the room after so many days. Walking by the streets, he thought
and thought and thought upon his problem but could not answer it.
He got to Shashank’s
house and found him studying English through the front window which was as big
as a huge door. He greeted his parents and got straight into his study room
which he didn’t use much, he rather liked the couch more.
‘Hello’ said
Shashank in a sweet voice, ‘nice to see you, what’s it that made you come to me
in your final days before the Olympiad’, ‘Oh my friend, I have been stuck in a
web full of spiders’ said Raman in a bit sad voice, ‘what do you mean’ said
Shashank, ‘I have a huge problem, I am starting to forget things that I have
learned in these 35 days for my Olympiad and I am getting sort of depressed due
to the pressure, the environment of my home, people’s expectations, my
go……’ Raman said in a mixture of tones but got disturbed by Shashank, ‘ok, ok,
ok. Stop. First of all, you are not giving yourself time to sleep, am I
correct?’ asked Shashank ‘Yes’ replied Raman. ‘All the things you load in your
brain are processed in your sleep, that’s why, a minimum of 8 hours of sleep is
important to you and secondly, your biggest mistake, YOU ARE NOT REVISING! You
should spend your final days revising what you have studied in these long 35
days, but, no, you are greedy for knowledge although, you will forget
everything that you have studied, am I right?’ said Shashank in a motivating
voice, ‘Yes you are indeed right, that is exactly why I say that I might be
more hard-working than you but you are with no doubt smarter than me’ Raman said.
Now Raman got home quickly and with further a dew, he flew straight into his
study room.
He started revising at once and got a perfect 8 hours of
sleep. He followed this timetable for the last 4 days. After all, 40 days had passed,
he got ready for his first international flight to Thailand, got to the airport,
and flew straight to Bangkok. The exam Centre was in the eastern part of
Bangkok in an open area full of lush greenery. A driver was waiting for them at
the airport to pick them up and drop them at the exam Centre, he was holding a
board that said “Mr Sharma and Raman”. At first, the Centre seemed to be a
cricket stadium, but as they got closer, the name sign for the stadium-like
structure became clear and read “Wexford University”. Raman and his father got
out of the car in an underground parking lot that was 3 storeys deep. It was
alongside the right side of the University.
As they got out of
the car, Raman started to get nervous and the second thing that he felt like
was like a mixture of many diverse feelings, getting him confused. Later they
found out that the examination hall was not inside the University but was
located 148 meters away from the University, and the reason was unknown, just
like fun, in the case of Raman, fun was no longer known to him. The
University was colossal and skyscraping, it was wider in base rather than the
height. It looked semi-modern in Raman’s eyes though, it had moss and webs at
some places of the outer corners of the wall, mostly painted in greyscale, the
gigantic building camouflaged with the sky pretty well. On the long walk across
a well-finished road, Raman was looking anxious, no father in the hell of the
world would like his dearest son to feel this way, so, he started to motivate
him with some wise words, ’Raman, you look damn nervous, reason also being damn
obvious’ his father said in a flowy voice, ‘Yes, I am nervous, I know that.
But, how to get rid of it, that is the main question’ he said while looking at
his shoes as he walked in a sluggish manner getting close to the hall slowly.
‘Just don’t overthink and breathe’ his father said looking in his eyes
adoringly.
They reached the registration counter and saw his
competitors sitting there for the first time. He also sat there and did as his
father told him. For no reason, Raman thought about running back to his
house on foot, just as depicted in the Oscar-winning masterpiece “Forrest
Gump”. Only the children who were competing were sitting there, the parents and
family members were sitting in the spectator’s row which was on the second
floor of the hall. The second floor was hollow from the middle, giving the view
of the competitors and at the corners were the benches where the parents were
sitting.
‘Breathe, breathe, breathe. Raman was meditating, his ears
were blanked out and he couldn't hear anything. As the silence got out of his
ears slowly he started to hear someone shouting politely ‘Is Raman here, please
report’. Raman raised his hands quickly, ‘Hurry, come here, fast’ the lady
shouted again. Raman speeded through the registration hall to the counter and
was given the badge of table number 7. He sat on the bench at the appropriate
row with a sigh and took out his stuff for writing, it was a multiple-choice
questions exam. He was provided with an OMR sheet and filled in the
details. He started to wonder why this exam was 5 hours long because it
had 150 questions in total. Raman’s father sat in the spectator’s row for the
whole 5 hours, waiting and waiting. Finally, Raman got out of the tinted glass
door out of the pressure. Raman felt so relieved but a bit sad at the same
time, the reason was that he thought that he could have given a better attempt
for the Olympiad. He felt like it was not his full capacity and he had way more
capability. Raman and his father walked out of the registration hall and got to
the cut where the 148-meter straight road started.
Raman then saw something so unexpected that goosebumps rose
on his arms again. A battalion was standing there with AKs and mags pointed at
Raman’s father, they were in such quantity that they blocked the whole view
beyond it, around 150 to 200 military officers and police officers. It was very
hard for Raman to interpret such data in his mind. When all this was going on
in his mind, the police shouted together ‘Hands up Yusuf, you have been caught,
give up all the weapons you have’. Raman has another problem to solve, his
whole life, he thought that his father was named Anant but Yusuf! ‘How the hell
can someone…...
‘Stay back officers, otherwise!’ Raman’s father said in a
loud and clear voice suddenly looking like a big gangster would look, lips
tightened, one eyebrow lifted and an atrocious smile on the face with a ton of
wrinkles. No one was violent till now when Yusuf pointed a gun at Raman’s forehead
with his other hand wrapped around his neck. Raman became speechless and
flashbacks started to appear in front of his eyes. ‘No, don’t dare you do that,
otherwise, you are dead’ one of the main officers said. ‘I don’t fear death’
Saying this Yusuf vanished from there in a magical still, in reality,
illusional way. Raman then found himself in a moving van, he was sitting in
front of Yusuf. He tried to scream but soon realised that he was taped.
‘Just listen, Raman,
I am going to clear all of your doubts, but, just listen’ Yusuf said in a
whispery voice, in reply, Raman nodded his head. ‘Good, now let’s start from
the beginning, I am an international mafia and a member of the mere group which
is the biggest drug dealer and mafia group internationally, fine, I will not
hide anything but I am the leader of that group’. Raman widened his eyes such
that it seemed to pop out in surprise. Yusuf continued ‘I have also not married
and you are my adopted child, I brought you from the adoption centre to conduct
a mission in which we had to destroy the morale gang, you were like a pig for
slaughter, just like depicted in the book “charlotte’s web”, let’s not go
off-topic, I saved you from being slaughtered because I liked you so much, that
seeing you alone waiting to be killed in the middle of the road made me almost
cry.
After saving you, at the age of 1 year, I set out to buy a
home and inserted thousands of mini projectors and programmed your sister and
mother who were not real’ Raman’s father said. Raman signed towards his mouth
and wanted Yusuf to remove the tape, so his father did so. After Yusuf took the
tape out, Raman said in surprise ‘But I have not seen any of the projectors my
whole life, how’s that possible’ Yusuf replied ‘I just said they were mini projectors
designed by an MIT graduate, aka- me, they all were about 1 mm in size, I have
mastered every aspect of battle, illusion, engineering, AI, computer science,
and many more. I know that you are determined for this competition, I also
tried to disturb you by making changes to your sister’s program and that is why
she was irritating you during your preparations after this, I also planned to
vanish in front of everyone without anyone knowing.
Raman was in a trauma situation, neither he could not think
of what to do nor there was anything he could do. He asked Yusuf about where he
was taking him. Yusuf said that he would get to know, after some time they
finally arrived at a big factory that was looking too old to be called
abandoned. The windows shattered, and moss stuck in every corner of the
factory. It looked like it was the headquarters of a big mafia gang it was,
Raman got to know from Yusuf.
Yusuf started to hear a gun loading at a distance and soon
suspected that it was a sniper from the moral gang and turned his chest towards
Raman to save him from the bullet, but was too late. Raman got shot in the head
and died right at the moment.
After Raman, it was time for the factory and the driver.
The factory was blown up by the moral gang in an instant with just a click of a
button with all the crew and other members of the mere gang, after the driver
was shot, the van ran straight into the factory due to no control but Yusuf
jumped out of the van just in time. But he was still too much injured with bold
shed and blood drips all over the van and the factory in the background being
burnt in flames. Yusuf was laid down due to jumping out of the van and soon
understood why the moral group wasn’t killing him.
It was because the leader of the gang wanted Yusuf to
suffer through intense pain and depression. Yusuf raged and wanted intense
revenge and avenge for Raman and his friends. He was hopeless and ruthless at
the same time, but this time not for others but for himself. He came to
conclude everything, at last, what was even left of him. Took a piece of glass
scattered from the van’s window and cut his neck with a deep and hard stroke.
Hence, died there lying, with a factory burning in the background and burning
with it, his soul.
Writer- Shashank Shekhar Shukla School- The TonsBridge School
Grade- 7th – G
Age- 12 years
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