A Road to Happiness

 

Tyler was sitting on the couch with his eyes half closed. It was dawn outside. Sounds of the chirping of birds and shining rays of the rising Sun was indicating the beginning of a beautiful and fresh new day. But nothing was cheering enough for Tyler. Last night was a sleepless one for him. To be precise, he was experiencing sleepless nights for quite sometime.

Tyler was a young energetic fellow once who just wanted to be a successful corporate. For the whole life, Tyler’s aim was to achieve the targets set by him. And he never regretted that. He always pursued for his dream, i.e. to be one of the most renowned and respected corporate leaders of the world. And he achieved it to a great extent in his mid-fifties, by heading one of the most prestigious corporate institution. Now, he was on the verge of retirement, and this was the fact that was causing those sleepless nights.

For the first time, Tyler was left clueless. There was no goal anymore, no target to follow, no dream to pursue. So what’s next? He remained a bachelor in his whole life, so that his work life was not interfered. Now he was left alone and a strange, hollow feeling engulfed him. He was on the top of the world, but it only seemed to be a curse. “Is every successful person alone like me?”, wondered Tyler, but he knew even getting the answer won’t change anything for him.

“Rrrring, Rrrrrring”, the sound of his phone startled him. On picking the phone, he was surprised to hear a sweet, immature little girl’s voice on the phone. “Hello Papa, is that you really?”, the voice of the child was enthusiastic and pure. Tyler was dumbstruck and stayed silent, having no idea what was going on. The voice continued, “I knew you will pick up my call. How can you not talk to me for so long? Papa, talk to me please. Don’t be angry please….”. Tyler replied, in a shaky voice,” Yes sweet, how are you? I.. er.. I missed you.” And the weird conversation continued. Tyler had no idea who he was talking with, but he just couldn’t resist the appeal in that sweet voice. He assumed it was a wrong number dialed and was somewhat feeling guilty as well, for deceiving the little girl, by pretending to be her father. But he continued. The conversation was a long one and finally the girl bid goodbye and told she would call again, to get help for her homework. After the call ended, Tyler was feeling like he was dreaming. But for the first time he felt that this, extremely weird encounter, was one of the finest ever in his life. He was so happy. Just a few minutes talk with the girl has rejuvenated him to the fullest extent possible. He jumped up and began preparing for his day ahead.

After the day’s work was over, Tyler was returning in his car. He kept on thinking about the girl. All that he wanted was a call from her. He couldn’t call her back, fearing this little mistake may get rectified if someone else picks up the phone. Finally the most expected call came again, from Abby, with an obvious request of help for homework and lots of “very important” topics to be discussed with her “father”. Tyler was overjoyed and went on with the flow. It seemed to him that he has got a daughter of his own, and she was the one for whom he would be living now.

This amazing “mistake” continued for quite a few days. The bonding between this two unknown souls became stronger than ever in those few days. Finally Tyler thought of meeting Abby in person and called back at the number. An unknown voice answered the call and Tyler began talking. What he learnt fascinated, saddened and overjoyed him. Abby was an orphan who was being brought up in a home for the orphans. The number from which she was calling was the institution’s phone, which she used when nobody was around. Abby lost her mother during her birth. Her father was everything to her. But both Abby and her father was travelling in their car when a horrible accident happened. Abby survived but her father didn’t. But the little girl never believed that her father was gone. She remembered couple of digits of her father’s cell number. So she just dialed an imaginary number, and the call went to Tyler!!

Tyler made up his mind. He thought the only one who can give him happiness was this little girl, Abby. And Tyler was certain, that bringing up her would be the goal for the rest of his life. He went for his car keys, feeling certain to bring Abby to her father’s home by the end of the day.

Pursue