Rachel reached home and gave the groceries to her mother. Her mother, on looking at the dressing of her wound, asked her all about it. After reprimanding her about it, she went away to do her chores, leaving Rachel alone again. Having nothing to do, she went out into the town and started wandering in the town garden located near the square. While wandering, she saw a cute white rabbit nibbling on a carrot. While she was gushing about the cuteness of the rabbit, an eagle suddenly swooped in on the rabbit and took off into the sky with it as its prey.
"Nooooo!!!" Rachel screamed in anguish as she saw the rabbit taken away by the eagle.
She felt a wave of sadness washing over her as she sat on the bench of the park.
After some time, a stranger came and sat on the bench beside her. He started throwing seeds in front of him as a flock of birds gathered around them to eat the seeds.
"Why are looking so gloomy on such a nice day, young lady?" asked the stranger to Rachel.
"Why do bad things always happen to good and innocent people? Why is the fate of nice people so bad?"
" Hmm, well I don't have an answer to your first question. Maybe it's because the world is filled with so much darkness that a ray of light feels foreign to it and is snuffed out the moment it shines in the darkness. But yes, to answer your second question, I believe there is no such thing as fate."
"What...!!. How can you say that nothing is fated? Everything which happens now or will happen in the future has already been destined. There is nothing we can do to change it."
"Hmmm...." The stranger said nothing and sat on the bench in silence. The seeds got over after some time. Suddenly a blank paper flew out of somewhere at landed at the stranger's feet. He picked up the paper, tore it into half and gave one half to Rachel.
" What? What is this? What should I do with this piece of paper?"
Anything which comes to your mind."
After some time, getting no idea about what to do with the piece of paper, she folded it and made a paper crane out of it.
The stranger gave her the other half and a picturesque pencil drawing of the garden was drawn on it.
Wow, you are really good at drawing. Do you..." Her sentence was stopped abruptly as the stranger started speaking.
"If we look at it from your point of view, then the fate of this paper would have been being trash and going into the dustbin. But then I decided to change its fate and made it much more beautiful and valuable than it initially was. Our life is something like that, young lady. Nothing is predestined, the future is unpredictable. It's a result of the cumulation of the choices which you make in the present. And how you shape the present is in your hands, life is a canvas and you are its painter, lady."
'What, but that's...I never thought about it like that. What a unique way of conveying thoughts.' mused Rachel to herself. But then she realised that she had forgotten to ask the stranger's name.
"Excuse me, what is your na..." She couldn't complete her sentence as the stranger had already left while she was immersed in her thoughts.