The Premonition

‌She had been trying to solve the problem unsuccessfully, for quite sometime. But none of the fixes worked - the code failed repeatedly at the same line. Frustration - the one caused by the inability to resist undesirable events in life - loomed on her face. By then, the constant staring at the screen had already started to strain her eyes. Moreover, the indolence of sedentary work life was telling upon her spirit. Reclining on the chair, she fixed her gaze on the ceiling, and soon was absorbed into reminiscences.
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‌The door opened by a cracking noise as she entered. The lab was empty , but the instructor was sitting to the right of the entrance, pretending to be oblivious of her presence. Without greeting him, she walked straight to one of the systems and started working from where she had left off in the previous class. She was barely ten minutes into her work when she heard someone call out her name. When she turned around, she saw a batchmate wanting to talk to her in private. By the gesture of hand he asked her to come out of the lab. Once she was alone with him, he said
" It is a joint effort. If you go against it, the purpose would be defeated. I expect you to do what everyone else is doing. That's how boycotts work." The tone of his voice wasn't demanding.
Though rigid adherence to convention was not her habit, she obliged without much protestations. She shutdown the machine, picked up her backpack, and left the lab. While leaving, she greeted the instructor.
Later that day, as she was loitering in the library, someone told her that the professor of her department wanted to see her. The professor was reading the newspaper when she met him.
Without shifting his eyes from the paper, he asked her.
" Why did you leave the lab?"
"They asked me to."
He looked at her nonchalantly and said,
"So? Don't you have your own say? If you don't stand your ground, how will you survive in the industry?"
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While those words echoed in her ears, the incessant typing noise from her co workers brought her to the present.Time had proven that the professor's premonition wasn't completely wrong. Reluctantly, she looked at her computer screen.The cursor beeped at the same line as if waiting in anticipation for her to return.





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