105 DAYS

Chapter Five - Ian

Ian waited till the applause died down. Slowly after the stadium fell silent with the last clap Ian tapped the mic and started his well-rehearsed speech.

“Life is a journey with many obstacles. And my favourite thing to do is to face them bravely. Since I was just a little boy, I was never afraid of anything. I played with fire and defeated darkness. I think that chid in me was the reason why I am here today in front of all of you who are so deserving of this ‘Young Rising Star’ award. I became an adventurer because I wanted to be an adventurer. You should dream to achieve. You all are stars. But a star is not recognized if it doesn’t shine. I
shone. So, should you. Once again thank you ladies and gentleman for presenting me this phenomenal award. This was my dream for the for the past five years.” Ian got down from the stage in the middle of applause.

He was proud of himself. He had never felt like this way before. He felt as though his heart would burst out of his happiness. He never thought that he would
achieve this award. He even rehearsed his thanking speech because he had a feeling in the bottom of his heart saying that he might win this. At last all his efforts and dreams had come true.

Ian was an adventurer. And he was a best one at that. He had hiked through ten forests and had climbed more than eight mountains. He even had tried Alps. His next dream was to reach the Everest. But as he strongly believed, everything has a date and time and his time to climb the Everest has not yet come to him. Since Ian was just a teenager, he spent most of his time doing physical exercise. He was
tall for his age at six feet two inches and his long legs and arms were a massive support to his journey. He had started little. First, he had started rock climbing when he was merely in his final year of his high school and his friends hated to go rock climbing with Ian as he would push them to their limits and they would feel
beaten down afterwards. Ian laughing would deny their comments and would do the climbing himself. But his friends never let him down. They would always encourage him to do more as of course friends would do unlike some family.

Ian’s family never supported him to achieve his dream. His parents, both were doctors and they even hoped that their son would grow up to be like them. But Ian was very athletic since he was young and he loved adventure. Since he was a kid, he denied being a doctor. He hated the cutting chopping dirty work that the
doctors do. Sometimes maybe the incident that Ian had to face when he was young was the reason behind his decision.

When Ian was about eight years old, one day he was running up and down the stairs for fun. His mom asked him to stop doing the dangerous work but he didn’t listen. As his mom feared, once when he was taking the stairs three steps at a time he slipped and rolled down the stairs. He didn’t have a lot of injury but he
had sprained his right foot. His mom took him to the doctor and he had a very kind face and Ian thought that the kind doctor would do some of his magic work and with a blink of an eye his pain would be gone. But no, the old man kept poking his ankle and asking whether it was hurting him when he pokes his ankle. Ian
admitted that only his ankle was hurting and with his teeth bared he asked the doctor “why do you keep poking me here and there doc?”. The doctor laughingly
patted his right ankle and Ian’s eyes automatically teared. At last the old man did something to his leg and tied it with a big bandage. The cast was the reason why
his mom didn’t allow him to get down the bed for two weeks. After two weeks, when for the first time Ian got down the bed, he thought that he might have forgotten how to walk. After that day for the rest of his life Ian was very careful as
he didn’t want to spend another two weeks of his precious time on bed.

Poor little Ian.

Ian was feeing bored. After the award ceremony he had nothing to do. He didn’t do anything. He exercised daily and jogged twice a day. For the first time in his life he was jobless. He always had to do something. He never even went on a hike without agreeing with another adventure to do after the first hike. He was very planned and his diary was always filled with schedules. But this time
suddenly on the day before he was supposed to join the ‘A team’ on a rock-climbing training it was cancelled as the leader of the group met an accident suddenly and he had died on the spot. So, the days in ahead of him for the following two months was just blank.