“She never wrote again.”

Stupud tears, Reena thought cynically. 

She wiped one on her sleeve as she scrolled through her E-mails bitterly. A Literary magazine had rejected her poems. Again. 

How long would this go on? 

Internet said that failure is for cowards. 

She wasn’t a coward. That, she knew. However, she was so knackered of her failures that she didn’t want to try anymore.  

Reena was metaphorically walking on a rocky path with the horizon further away. From her vantage point, she could see it. However, reaching it seemed like an impossibility. 

She closed her laptop with a fierce thud and massaged her temples, willing a headache away. Making it into the big world of literature was a vexing and oppressive task. 

How would she go on like this? Questions that had no answers, apparently. 

For once, she had felt that she would become an independent woman who could earn because of her writing career. That clearly was not happening right now. 

—One Week Later–

Reena’s spirits were high, the sky the limit, probably. She opened her laptop with optimism and alacrity foreign  even to her. 

After carefully logging into her E-Mail, her heart started beating faster as her eyes zeroed into the newest email that had made its way into her otherwise boring cachè of emails. 

“This piece is not for us. Sorry, Reena.” 

Another defeat. Another disappointment. 

With a loud cry, she screamed in frustration and the laptop was closed with a powerful thud. Again. 

Reena never wrote again. She’s a teacher now, making viable use of her English Literature degree. 

——

The world is fickle and our hearts even more fickle. The world is made up of cryptic signs and predictions that somehow help us shape our lives in a better way. Sometimes, we are looking in the wrong shelf of the closet. I know this is a morose story but my first short story.

Tell me how it is. 

Have a good day! 

Avantika.