26 Hours A Day

Lynn, a thirteen-year-old girl, was talented and hardworking. God had blessed her with pretty features, a good memory, and a beautiful melodious voice. However, she possessed a negative trait that always affected her performance. She would procrastinate and would do so in almost everything she undertook. Despite her parents and teachers repeatedly pointing out her flaw and persuading her to improve upon it, she never took them seriously. “What is the hurry” she would often tell her mother.

Very soon she graduated to the eighth standard and this habit of procrastinating became a big hindrance in completing her school work. She would often while away her time and thus neither do well in academics nor get time to relax. She would then sit and grumble about the amount of pressure that she was having to undertake.

One day, in despair, she prayed to God, “Oh Lord! It is really unfair on your part to give only 24 hours a day and expect us to do so much in such little time. How wonderful would it be if I could get just 2 more hours in a day so I could finish my work, study, and even have time to relax.”

The next morning, when she woke up, she saw a gift wrapped in silver-blue paper lying by her bedside table. She immediately started to unwrap the gift wondering why her mother was suddenly so pleased with her. She was thrilled to find a golden colored alarm clock. Tucked neatly inside it was a manual. When she started reading the instructions, she was surprised to come across the instruction which read, “This alarm clock is specially designed to "STOP TIME” for two hours a day. Press the red button on the extreme right for the same. Please note that this button can be activated only once a day but once pressed, time will be stalled for exactly two hours and this action cannot be reversed. Only the person who owns this clock will be outside the ambit of this static condition and can function even in these two hours. Also note that if the button is not pressed till 10 p.m, time will automatically get stalled at 10 p.m. for a couple of hours.”

Lynn was elated. She now knew this was a gift from God and not her mother. God had not only given her two hours more but had also made sure that nobody else would get this extra time.

 Since it was a Saturday, she did not have to attend school. She decided to test the clock in the afternoon, when her mother would be fast asleep. As soon as the clock struck 1, Lynn pressed the red button on her magical clock. A brilliant white light appeared around the rim of the clock, and it displayed a stopwatch for the extra two hours in a countdown fashion. Her joy knew no bounds. It seemed that she had finally found a solution to her malady.

The first thing Lynn decided to do was to go down and play badminton with her friends. To her utter disappointment, she saw that all of them were standing there as if frozen. It did not take her long to realize that it was due to this magical clock that her friends were 'stilled' in time. She then decided to ride her bicycle, but could not do so, because all the people standing in the colony were scattered along the bicycle path almost akin to statues, and there was no way she could maneuver past them. Dejected, she went back home and waited for the world to come back to normal.

The next day she decided to make use of the extra time studying since she did not need anybody else for that. Hardly had she started reading her history textbook when her eyes shut, and she drifted off to sleep. When she awoke, the world was back to normal and she realized that she had used up the extra time for a nap.

She was once having her friend over for dinner and she had forgotten all about the clock. As per the rules, the clock stalled time at 10 p.m. and Lynn sat there for 2 hours just waiting for her friend to return to normalcy. But by then she was very tired and had to see off her friend early so that she could rest.

 The next day was her birthday and she had called her friends over. She always loved to flaunt the extravagant cake her mother would bake for her birthday. As she wanted to get some rest, she pressed the red button and got a good 2 hours of extra sleep in the afternoon. However, when she awoke, she was aghast to see that the cake was charred in the oven simply because she had timed her extra 2 hours in a way where mother had 'stopped' just after putting the cake in the oven.

Agitated and depressed, she prayed to God again that night and pleaded with him to get rid of the extra time. “I promise you dear God that I will never again procrastinate or complain regarding having less time and work around fitting everything in the golden 24 hours that you have provided us with.”

 The next day, when she awoke, she saw that the clock was missing. She asked her mother if she had seen her alarm clock but her mother was surprised and said, “Since when did you start using an alarm clock? If you did, would you not be able to plan things much better for yourself?” Lynn realized that the heavenly gift had been visible only to her.

Lynn is a different girl now. She has a scheduled timetable that includes homework, studying, playing with her friends, and even praying to God each day. She excels in school and in her music class. Teachers are surprised and often ask her what transformed her so drastically. To which she replies…. "26 hours a day".

-Veenaaz