Written in Stone

For someone who's future had been foretold with a mixture of intense words, one would expect a cinematic scenery during their entry into this world. Wind howling. Heavy rain. Lightning accompanied by thunder. Overall, magnificent.

But no.

Ellie was brought into the world during a heat wave, squalling her little lungs out so loud that a few nurses and her grandpa's then driver came running into the hallway near the delivery room, probably expecting to see someone getting murdered. Alas, it was just a baby screaming.

After they got settled for the night with Ellie swaddled in tiny blanket laying in her grandma’s arms, she sat up straight and her grandpa shot his wife a look, expecting some nonsense to be spouted.

Her grandma had always been eccentric. So, when she made an ominous prediction of her future, Ellie's mother did not take it seriously.

Yes, you guessed it. She would go on to regret that decision in near future.

Ellie was five years old and was seriously contemplating whether to choose M&M's or Choco chips as toppings on her Ice Cream cup when her grandma straightened up in her chair.

"Your choice will make or break the world," she declared.

Ellie frowned. Eating chocolate could break the world?

Grandma sighed to the heavens above and rolled her eyes as if she could hear Ellie's thoughts. Maybe she did, who knows?

"I am not talking about Chocolate, Ellie." She sniffed. "There are things beyond the general understanding of this world. Things you will be a part of. You will have to make a choice, then. Choose wisely."

Ellie did not understand but still nodded her head even if it were to appease her grandma who looked agitated. Ellie decided on M&M's and picked out a few yellow colored ones and presented them to her grandma, hoping they would cheer her up.

Sure enough, grandma shot her a beaming smile accepting the offered candy and started sucking on them. Ellie began eating her Ice Cream, already forgetting their conversation.

Ellie was seven years old and playing with her cousins in their grandparents’ yard, digging holes in the mud with their bare hands knowing that they were told not to do so. Ellie felt a sense of adventure in breaking rules. She was happy and could feel the excitement radiating from her cousins while gleefully digging up a handful of wet and sticky mud until they got caught, which was inevitable now that Ellie thinks about it.

Her cousins ran away laughing and screaming while Ellie, after a moment of consideration, had decided to stand her ground and faced her would-be punishers. She was just having some fun and Ellie was sure that there was nothing wrong in that. So, there she stood, 3 and half feet tall, hands on her hips with such confidence only a child could muster up.

Her mother pursed her lips, whether to hold her laugh or annoyance, Ellie was not sure. She found herself in an impasse with her mother until her grandma interrupted their staring contest.

"A fine leader, you could become." she said while mixing dough.

Ellie looked at her grandma. Her hair was in a disarray, streaks of white flour all over her face and clothes, glasses sliding down her nose and she was mixing the dough with such fervor that she looked like those little old witches in Ellie's storybooks, who would stir their cauldron sporting a manic grin.

"Don't start with me, Ma." mother sighed.

"Start what?" her grandma was a picture of innocence.

"You know exactly what!" mother turned to look at grandma.

"That girl needs to know her destiny! For the sake of our family, this world and the other!" Grandma argued.

"Other what!? You might believe in all that nonsense but that does not make it real, Ma!"

"Ellie is the key." Grandma said and went inside the house.

Ellie's mother took a deep breath and released it which ended in a groan, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts while Ellie quietly slipped away, her mind trying to process everything she just heard. She found the concept of having her future already written, like she heard her grandma saying once, hard to believe. Grandma had always been strange, but Ellie loved her anyway.

Her grandma’s forecasts about her future at random moments were a constant in Ellie’s life. She learned to roll with it over the years even when she was not sure she believed her predictions. As she grew up, the intensity in her grandma’s predictions also started to grow. One such situation stuck with Ellie long after it passed.

It was the summer of Ellie’s 17^th birthday. The day was hot and humid forcing everyone to stop working or doing any activities in the sun. Ellie and her grandma were sitting on the porch under the shade with a pitcher of cool lemonade, reading their respective books.

Grandma straightened up from her relaxed posture, which Ellie now recognized as a sign that her grandma would be sharing some wisdom.

“What would you choose?” grandma asked. “Between being a hero and a leader.”

Ellie blinked. While she got used to her grandma quizzing her on seemingly random topics that might or might not be linked to her already written future, this would be one of the few times she would have to think a bit before answering. Is it even possible to chose to be one thing? Only a hero. Or a leader.

“I don’t know.” Ellie answered.

Her grandma hummed. She was silent for the next few minutes that Ellie thought that the conversation was done.

Just as it had always been in her life, Ellie’s grandma surprised her by turning to face her with an earnest look on her face.

“Why, Ellie?” Grandma asked.

Why, indeed. Why was it hard to chose between being a hero and a leader?

Ellie shrugged. “Aren’t they the same?”

“No.” grandma said. “Sure, some leaders could be heroes and vice-versa, but they are not the same.”

Ellie pondered on that. True, there had been so many leaders in the world who were heroes. Some were cruel and inspired fear. Some were just the figures of authority with no influence on the people they ruled or governed.

“I think that we can not chose to be either.” Ellie said after some time. “We can only choose to do things in a certain way.”

Grandma gave a small smile. She did not say whether she agreed on Ellie’s remark or not. Eventually, they went back to their books, but Ellie’s mind was still full of the words she said. Before she knew it, a few hours went by and her mother was calling her inside to help prepare dinner.

“Remember, Ellie.” Grandma’s voice stopped her before she could step inside the house. “The choices you make will define how you are seen. It could be either as a hero or a leader. Often, both. And sometimes, as nothing but a cog in the wheel.”

Ellie spent the next half a dozen or so years keeping an eye out for anything that seemed unusual. The conversation with her grandma when she was 17 had inclined her to believe that there might be some truth to grandma’s predictions. So, she kept an eye out for something to happen.

Nothing did. Ellie was sure that she might be leading herself into a false sense of security but wrote it off as just jitters caused by her grandma’s ominous words. Still, she waited for something. Anything.

Nothing happened, until it did. Ellie swore up and down that she could hear her grandma cackling.

Ellie was 22 and stressed out in her new job when she met a strange woman with questionable fashion sense and was promptly thrown into the middle of the heavy traffic.

Fin~