ECHOES ACROSS TIME

 

Aarav and Nisha arrived on Havelock Island, hoping to escape the rush of their everyday lives. The island felt untouched—quiet beaches, clear water, and a silence that seemed from another time. Their hotel was small and old, filled with antique

furniture and forgotten memories.

While Aarav rushed to the beach, Nisha lingered. She found a leather-bound diary hidden beneath old letters, worn with age. The diary belonged to a woman named Shivani, dated 1970.

Curious, Nisha asked the hotel manager about it. He smiled gently. “It’s been here for as long as I can remember,” he said, “but no one knows how it got here.”

Nisha began reading. Shivani had left everything behind—her family, her friends, even her fiancé—to live in solitude on the island. She didn’t explain why, only that she needed to step away from the life she knew.

“I needed to get away from the noise,” Shivani wrote. “I wanted to be invisible, to live without the weight of anyone’s expectations. There is peace in being forgotten.”

As Nisha read, she felt the sadness in Shivani’s words. Shivani had disconnected from the world, but at a great cost. There was freedom in her choice, but also a deep loneliness. She had let go of everything, but had she found what she was looking for?

“I chose to disappear,” Shivani wrote. “The world moves too fast. I wanted to feel life slowly, but now it feels like I’m slipping away too.”

Nisha closed the diary, her mind heavy with thoughts. Shivani’s choice seemed impossible now. In 2024, where everyone was always connected, the idea of disappearing felt like a distant dream. The world had become a place where being unreachable wasn’t allowed.

Aarav returned from the beach, carefree, but Nisha couldn’t shake her feelings. She realized something then—Shivani had the choice to vanish, to step away from the noise, something that felt impossible now. Today, 24/7 availability haunted everyone, as if being constantly reachable had become a kind of prison.

Somehow, Nisha felt the urge to hug Shivani, to comfort her for the choice she made, and yet to envy her for it too. To be traceless, to vanish, was a luxury people didn’t have anymore. The world moved too fast, always pulling them back into the constant buzz of notifications, messages, and demands.

Nisha looked out at the still, endless sea, feeling the weight of the world they lived in. We are always connected, she thought, but never truly close. No one speaks from the heart anymore. Everyone is rushing, always moving, too fast to stop, too fast to feel. In today’s world, there’s no time to give time.

That was the tragedy of 2024. So much connection, yet no one really seeing or hearing each other. Life moved too fast to truly pause, and in the rush, everything that mattered was slipping away.