Rachel was sitting by the window sill, looking out of the window at the streets. It was drizzling, and the weather was not looking good. It was looking as if a heavy downpour was going to happen at any time. People were rushing to be in the safety and comfort of their homes. The winds were rustling through the leaves of the tree in her garden, creating a beautiful melody of nature.
She kept thinking about what had happened at the park two days ago. That incident had remained fresh in her mind. She could not stop herself from thinking about the stranger and the way in which he just uprooted her ideas and preexisting mindset with a few words and actions. Did fate truly not exist? Did we have our future in our own hands? How can we be in control of our future? This concept seemed foreign to Rachel. Since childhood, she had been told that growing up and marrying a wealthy or powerful person would be her best and only future. This was her future. How could she change it? It had been determined since the moment she had been born. But the concept of having her future in her hands did seem enticing and nice to her. She always had a small part inside her that wanted to be in control of herself, that wanted to make her own decisions. But she pushed it down and followed what her parents had instructed. After all, they had always taken all the important decisions for her, they were her parents after all. They had more worldly experience than her. They had the right to take the decisions for her, didn't they? Or did they? Who gave them the right to take every decision for her? Even she had some dreams. She wanted to roam around the world and visit every famous place which she had read about in the books. The paintings looked so beautiful on the pages, they must be even more beautiful than the books. But she never spoke about her dream to anyone, because even if she did speak about her dream to anyone, there was nothing anyone could do. It was never in her destiny to fulfill her dreams. At least that was what she thought until now. But now, she could see a ray of hope, that maybe, just maybe, she would be able to fulfill her dream, or at least take a step towards it. She watched as the downpour slowly started increasing, the different water droplets tracing paths across the window, all joining towards the end, ending at the bottom of the window. The frogs had come out of their hideout and had started croaking in the rain. Eventually, the downpour slowed down to a drizzle and the sun rays started peeking out of the curtain of the clouds, giving hope that maybe the weather might become sunny again, just like a new hope had reignited in her mind to pursue her dreams. As she was thinking about all these things, she saw an old man selling mirrors coming across the street. Remembering that her mirror had been broken down by the cat which had entered her house, she went out of her house and went to the old man to buy a mirror. As she neared the old man, she saw that he had kept a variety of mirrors for every age group. The old man, on looking toward Rachel, asked "Do you want to buy a mirror young lady? Anything unique that caught your eye?"
Rachel looked through the variety of mirrors and finally found one which she found the most interesting, it had an intricate border design with a clock and a door carved into the borders. The old man, on looking at the mirror, said "A very interesting choice, young lady, shall I pack it for you?"
"Yes, please do so sir."
"That would be 20 silver coins, miss."
"Okay, thank you, sir." Rachel said as she handed the old man the money and took the mirror from him. She then went inside her house and closed the door, unknowing of the fact that she had already taken a step towards changing her future.