Conflict with Time

Conflict with Time 

 By Chiman Salih

From the first time Sarah sees a watch on the wrist of her favorite cartoon character, she wants one of her own. She knows the cartoon character carries a magic watch, but she can manage with a normal one like her classmates wear. It marks prestige, even if not as elegant as watches worn by teachers. 

Sarah’s parents put off fulfilling her request. Her father, who makes all major decisions by virtue of making the money, dithers. And her mother, serving as a buffer between the children and their father, can only inform him of the daughter’s desire—of how she locks herself in her room, crying, and miserably not doing her homework to urge them to buy a watch for her. 

She feels like her desire is becoming a distant dream, and not that easy to force them get her a watch, at the same time, her love for having a watch increases. Every now and then she reminds her father of her wish. The desire obsesses her so much that every morning when she wakes up she finds her right thumb and index fingers curled around her left wrist. 

That is not the whole problem; she has told all her classmates that her father will buy her a watch like one wore by Ms. Suzan, their elegant teacher, which is studded with blue crystal stones. Every day, the classmates gather around her and urge her to show them the watch and she feels ashamed when she doesn’t have any watch in hand yet. 

Every day she has to invent a new lie to make them wait more and try hard to not her lose credibility. 

A group of them mock her and label her as a lier and braggart, at the time that she is covering up the trouble that she is in which ensuing skirmishes between her and some of her classmates, eventually, her characteristic changes. She gets furious, ambiguous and isolated whilst she has a zealot, friendly character. 

She spends all of her break time at school alone with her books and sometimes just to wrap up the break she practices her hobby, which is painting. 

After three years, the father tells her he will bring her a watch if she gets good grades in the final exams of primary school. She already studies hard, but when she hears that she increases her diligence. She also searches for any opportunity to retrieve her value among her classmates. 

The results of the final exam turn out and Sarah is one of the top students in her group and is asked by the headmaster to present in the graduation ceremony. The school’s administration hails Sarah and nine other students for their outstanding success and they are awarded certificates of honor along with gifts of playthings. Among Sarah’s set there is a colored turtle which is very attractive for children and because of this nice turtle all the students who live close to Sarah walk home with her. On the way she feels very relieved, after the watch’s somber story ruined all her happiness at school. She feels like she getting some of her balance back.

She leads the children towards home; a part of her mind with the turtle and children’s chatter, the other part still on the watch which is engrossing her. 

She feels fatigued of remembering her parents about it; sometimes she feels like the street children when they beg someone over and over to give them a piece of coin. 

As she gets older she becomes more sensitive. 

Some days into her honorable success, everyone talks about her success, now she is a good example for the parents when they are preaching their children to study, the most silent is her own family, they are unuttered about her overdue right to buy her a watch. Desperately, she breaks their silence and asks again, but in vain. 

In cold blood, her father says that if she repeats this success in the intermediate final exams after another three years, he will present her with a watch. This time, unlike the previous times, she leaves the room in silence. 

She loses the glitter of the past; she senses that she is in the eve of a new stage in life; she has to depend on herself more, delay some wishes, throw away some others, and build other new goals. She doesn’t know if she is now a child, teenager or adult; all she knows is that she has a long way to go. 

She realizes that life is not like a mathematical equation but it is a kind of art and management and realization, for example, they are not that poor, her father afford to get for her instead of one, several watches but he doesn’t do that. He is not a penny pincher—it depends, sometimes he is, sometimes he is not. 

Foremost, she gets rid of the watch’s matter. She determines to pursue her success and protect her happiness too. 

In the early days of her intermediate school, the teacher asks the students to write a paragraph to express their vision about embracing their future. Sarah writes, “Expecting anything from anybody else, and putting all your happiness in that, even though they are your parents, could ruin your happiness.” 

She goes this path. Her wise words solidify when her teacher explores her talent in painting and recommends she nurture it. 

“You have the chance to be a famous painter and could earn a lot of money if you try to improve your skill,” the teacher tells her. 

Another three years pass. This time there is no solicitation or crying on her part. Her father comes in and gives her a bag holding several gifts He kisses his daughter for the first time in approximately eight years, since she was a little infant. 

“Open this,” Father says happily. 

He asks his daughter to look at the gifts and see how he stuck to his promise and the watch is among the gifts. 

She smiles slightly and looks in the bag, finding a fake watch. No problem that it’s fake, but it’s the kind of watch more suited to children than teenager like her, who will be admitted to secondary school after two months. Perhaps, if he brought this when the desire for a watch first struck her mind, she would have been loved it, but not now.

“Thanks,” Sarah says. 

Sarah leaves the room calmly. 

She takes the bag, only to throw it in a drawer of a dresser. It will probably be found after a long time by someone, and thrown away.  

She doesn’t care and takes the gifts without objection, without commenting on the watch. 

Sarah spends this summer with papers and color pencils, drawing figures and sketches on multiple sheets of papers. 

She finds that she is talented in painting. From the second year of secondary school, she sells her paintings and takes part in the school’s exhibitions. It feels wonderful to earn money because of her talent and she is progressing in study as well. 

Her grades in the last year of secondary school qualify her for one of the best universities and she starts a part-time job in a distinguished companies a painter and designer. She presents many excellent designs to the company. A few years after graduation she becomes the owner of a large percentage of shares in the company. The company basically couldn’t quit her talent. She has become well known on a wide level, the municipality of the city offers her to make a design for a monumental sculpture is in the form of a huge clock, to be placed in one of the main spots of the city. 

  Two decades after she graduated from university she lives the life of a classy and wealthy woman. She now owns many items of gold and diamond jewelry and valuable accessories, but not one watch.