Ankush Shetkar 2026-01-28T18:18:18+05:30 Microsoft® Word 2019 2026-01-28T18:18:18+05:30 Microsoft® Word 2019 Microsoft® Word 2019 Ankush Shetkar Microsoft® Word 20192026-01-28T18:18:18+05:302026-01-28T18:18:18+05:30 uuid:A704DE34-20DD-4371-A74C-8B995D3785B9uuid:A704DE34-20DD-4371-A74C-8B995D3785B9 tetml={filename={D:\drim\repository\projects\drim_18_0\metadata\3\8\38eb67969b7eb56e4cabe3f4ee452ee5\38eb67969b7eb56e4cabe3f4ee452ee5.tet.xml} elements={annotations=false bookmarks=false destinations=false fields=false javascripts = false} } granularity=word contentanalysis={punctuationbreaks=false dehyphenate=false} layoutanalysis={tabledetect=0 layoutdetect=0} She needed glasses. It wasn't that she couldn't see without them, but what she could see with them. When she wore glasses, her eyes focused so deeply that she could see not only the physical but also beyond. It was like a superpower. But she needed glasses. She was in a hurry. Not the standard hurry when you're in a rush to get someplace, but a frantic hurry. The type of hurry where a few seconds could mean life or death. She raced down the road ignoring speed limits and weaving between cars. She was only a few minutes away when traffic came to a dead standstill on the road ahead. He had done everything right. There had been no mistakes throughout the entire process. It had been perfection and he knew it without a doubt, but the results still stared back at him with the fact that he had lost. His mother had always taught him not to ever think of himself as better than others. He'd tried to live by this motto. He never looked down on those who were less fortunate or who had less money than him. But the stupidity of the group of people he was talking to made him change his mind. The wave crashed and hit the sandcastle head-on. The sandcastle began to melt under the waves force and as the wave receded, half the sandcastle was gone. The next wave hit, not quite as strong, but still managed to cover the remains of the sandcastle and take more of it away. The third wave, a big one, crashed over the sandcastle completely covering and engulfing it. When it receded, there was no trace the sandcastle ever existed and hours of hard work disappeared forever. There were a variety of ways to win the game. James had played it long enough to know most of them and he could see what his opponent was trying to do. There was a simple counterattack that James could use and the game should be his. He began deploying it with the confidence of a veteran player who had been in this situation a thousand times in the past. So, it was with great surprise when his opponent used a move he had never before seen or anticipated to easily defeat him in the game. Peter always saw the world in black and white. There were two choices for every situation and you had to choose one of them. It was therefore terribly uncomfortable for him to spend time with Ashley. She saw the world in shades of gray with hundreds of choices to choose from in every situation. She nervously peered over the edge. She understood in her mind that the view was supposed to be beautiful, but all she felt was fear. There had always been something about heights that disturbed her, and now she could feel the full force of this unease. She reluctantly crept a little closer with the encouragement of her friends as the fear continued to build. She couldn't help but feel that something horrible was about to happen. Debbie had taken George for granted for more than fifteen years now. He wasn't sure what exactly had made him choose this time and place to address the issue, but he decided that now was the time. He looked straight into her eyes and just as she was about to speak, turned away and walked out the door. Patricia's friend who was here hardly had any issues at all, but she wasn't telling the truth. Yesterday, before she left to go home, she heard that her husband is in the hospital and pretended to be surprised. It later came out that she was the person who had put him there. They argue. While the argument seems to be different the truth is it's always the same. Yes, the topic may be different or the circumstances, but when all said and done, it all came back to the same granularity=word contentanalysis={punctuationbreaks=false dehyphenate=false} layoutanalysis={tabledetect=0 layoutdetect=0} thing. They both knew it, but neither has the courage or strength to address the underlying issue. So they continue to argue. They rushed out the door, grabbing anything and everything they could think of they might need. There was no time to double-check to make sure they weren't leaving something important behind. Everything was thrown into the car and they sped off. Thirty minutes later they were safe and that was when it dawned on them that they had forgotten the most important thing of all. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas... Stormi is a dog. She is dark grey and has long legs. Her eyes are expressive and are able to let her humans know what she is thinking. Her tongue is long, pink, and wet. Her long legs allow her to sprint after other dogs, people or bunnies. She can be a good dog, but also very bad. Her tail wags when happy or excited and hides between her back legs when she is bad. Stormi is a dog I love. Dragons don't exist they said. They are the stuff of legend and people's imagination. Greg would have agreed with this assessment without a second thought 24 hours ago. But now that there was a dragon staring directly into his eyes, he questioned everything that he had been told. “Ingredients for life,” said the backside of the truck. They mean food, but really food is only 1 ingredient of life. Life has so many more ingredients such as pain, happiness, laughter, joy, tears, and smiles. Life also has hard work, easy play, sleepless nights, and sunbathing by the ocean. Love, hatred, envy, self-assurance, and fear could be just down aisle 3 ready to be bought when needed. How I wish I could pull ingredients like these off shelves in a store. It was going to rain. The weather forecast didn't say that, but the steel plate in his hip did. He had learned over the years to trust his hip over the weatherman. It was going to rain, so he better get outside and prepare. Her breath exited her mouth in big puffs as if she were smoking a cigarette. The morning dew had made her clothes damp and she shivered from the chill in the air. There was only one thing that could get her up and out this early in the morning. He walked down the steps from the train station in a bit of a hurry knowing the secrets in the briefcase must be secured as quickly as possible. Bounding down the steps, he heard something behind him and quickly turned in a panic. There was nobody there but a pair of old worn-out shoes were placed neatly on the steps he had just come down. Had he past them without seeing them? It didn't seem possible. He was about to turn and be on his way when a deep chill filled his body. She sat deep in thought. The next word that came out o her mouth would likely be the most important word of her life. It had to be exact with no possibility of being misinterpreted. She was ready. She looked deeply into his eyes and said, "Octopus." It was difficult to explain to them how the diagnosis of certain death had actually given him life. While everyone around him was in tears and upset, he actually felt more at ease. The doctor said it would be less than a year. That gave him a year to live, something he'd failed to do with his daily drudgery of a routine that had passed as life until then. They decided to find the end of the rainbow. While they hoped they would find a pot of gold, neither of them truly believed that the mythical pot would actually be there. Nor did they believe they could granularity=word contentanalysis={punctuationbreaks=false dehyphenate=false} layoutanalysis={tabledetect=0 layoutdetect=0} actually find the end of the rainbow. Still, it seemed like a fun activity for the day, and pictures of them chasing rainbows would look great on their Instagram accounts. They would have never believed they would actually find the end of a rainbow, and when they did, what they actually found there. There had to be a better way. That's all Nancy could think as she sat at her desk staring at her computer screen. She'd already spent five years of her life in this little cubicle staring at her computer doing "work" that didn't seem to matter to anyone including her own boss. There had to be more to her life than this and there had to be a better way to make a living. That's what she was thinking when the earthquake struck. It was the first day of the rest of her life. This wasn't the day she was actually born, but she knew that nothing would be the same from this day forward. Although this was a bit scary to her, it was also extremely freeing. Her past was no longer a burden or something that she needed to be concerned about and defend. She threw off the covers keeping her warm in bed, placed her feet over the side of the bed, slipped on her slipper, and took the first step of the first day of her new life. The red ball sat proudly at the top of the toybox. It had been the last to be played with and anticipated it would be the next as well. The other toys grumbled beneath. At one time each had held the spot of the red ball, but over time they had sunk deeper and deeper into the toy box. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense. The man walking down the street in a banana suit. The llama standing in the middle of the road. The fairies dancing in front of the car window. The fact that all of this was actually happening and wasn't a dream. Ten more steps. If he could take ten more steps it would be over, but his legs wouldn't move. He tried to will them to work, but they wouldn't listen to his brain. Ten more steps and it would be over but it didn't appear he would be able to do it. "So, what do you think?" he asked nervously. He wanted to know the answer, but at the same time, he didn't. He'd put his heart and soul into the project and he wasn't sure he'd be able to recover if they didn't like what he produced. The silence from the others in the room seemed to last a lifetime even though it had only been a moment since he asked the question. "So, what do you think?" he asked again. Life isn't always beautiful. That was a lesson that Dan was learning. He also realized that life wasn't easy. This had come as a shock since he had lived a charmed life. He hated that this was the truth and he struggled to be happy knowing that his assumptions weren't correct. He wouldn't realize until much later in life that the difficult obstacles he was facing that were taking away the beauty in his life at this moment would ultimately make his life much more beautiful. All he knew was that at this moment was that life isn't always beautiful. Benny was tired. Not the normal every day tired from a hard day o work. The exhausted type of tired where you're surprised your body can even move. All he wanted to do was sit in front of the TV, put his feet up on the coffee table, and drink a beer. The only issue was that he had forgotten where he lived. Was it enough? That was the question he kept asking himself. Was being satisfied enough? He looked around him at everyone yearning to just be satisfied in their daily life and he had reached that goal. He knew that he was satisfied and he also knew it wasn't going to be enough. granularity=word contentanalysis={punctuationbreaks=false dehyphenate=false} layoutanalysis={tabledetect=0 layoutdetect=0} There were little things that she simply could not stand. The sound of someone tapping their nails on the table. A person chewing with their mouth open. Another human imposing themselves into her space. She couldn't stand any of these things, but none of them compared to the number one thing she couldn't stand which topped all of them combined. I recently discovered I could make fudge with just chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract, and a thick pot on slow heat. I tried it with dark chocolate chunks and I tried it with semi-sweet chocolate chips. It's better with both kinds. It comes out pretty bad with just the dark chocolate. The best add-ins are crushed almonds and marshmallows -- what you get from that is Rocky Road. It takes about twenty minutes from start to fridge, and then it takes about six months to work off the twenty pounds you gain from eating it. All things in moderation, friends. All things in moderation. The robot clicked disapprovingly, gurgled briefly inside its cubical interior and extruded a pony glass of brownish liquid. "Sir, you will undoubtedly end up in a drunkard's grave, dead of hepatic cirrhosis," it informed me virtuously as it returned my ID card. I glared as I pushed the glass across the table. It wasn't that he hated her. It was simply that he didn't like her much. It was difficult for him to explain this to her, and even more difficult for her to truly understand. She was in love and wanted him to feel the same way. He didn't, and no matter how he tried to explain to her she refused to listen or to understand. I'm meant to be writing at this moment. What I mean is, I'm meant to be writing something else at this moment. The document I'm meant to be writing is, of course, open in another program on my computer and is patiently awaiting my attention. Yet here I am plonking down senseless sentiments in this paragraph because it's easier to do than to work on anything particularly meaningful. I am grateful for the distraction. Another option you have is choosing the number of syllables in the words you speak. You probably have never considered this option before, but you have it every time you open your mouth and speak. You make so many choices like this that you never even think about, but you have the choice with each one. What are you going to do with this knowledge? The kids were loud. They were way too loud for Jerry, especially since this was a four-hour flight. The parents didn't seem to be able, or simply didn't want, to control them. They were yelling and fighting among themselves and it was impossible for any of the passengers to concentrate or rest. He thought about politely tapping on the parents' shoulders and asking them to try and get their kids under a bit more control, but before he did he came up with a better idea. Sure, it was a bit sinister, and he'd probably end p in a lot of trouble, but he really didn't care at that point. It was the best compliment that he'd ever received although the person who gave it likely never knew. It had been an off-hand observation on his ability to hold a conversation and actually add pertinent information to it on practically any topic. Although he hadn't consciously strived to be able to do so, he'd started to voraciously read the news when he couldn't keep up on topics his friends discussed because their conversations went above his head. The fact that someone had noticed enough to compliment him that he could talk intelligently about many topics meant that he had succeeded in his quest to be better informed. There was a time and a place for Stephanie to use her magic. The problem was that she had a difficult time determining this. She wished she could simply use it when the desire hit and there granularity=word contentanalysis={punctuationbreaks=false dehyphenate=false} layoutanalysis={tabledetect=0 layoutdetect=0} wouldn't be any unforeseen consequences. Unfortunately, that's not how it worked and the consequences could be devastating if she accidentally used her magic at the wrong time. Was it a whisper or was it the wind? He wasn't quite sure. He thought he heard a voice but at this moment all he could hear was the wind rustling the leaves of the trees all around him. He stopped and listened more intently to see if he could hear the voice again. Nothing but the wind rustling the leaves could be heard. He was about to continue his walk when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he quickly turned to see who it was. There was nobody there, but he heard the voice again. This is important to remember. Love isn't like pie. You don't need to divide it among all your friends and loved ones. No matter how much love you give, you can always give more. It doesn't run out, so don't try to hold back giving it as if it may one day run out. Give it freely and as much as you want. There once lived an old man and an old woman who were peasants and had to work hard to earn their daily bread. The old man used to go to fix fences and do other odd jobs for the farmers around, and while he was gone the old woman, his wife, did the work of the house and worked in their own little plot of land. The headphones were on. They had been utilized on purpose. She could hear her mom yelling in the background, but couldn't make out exactly what the yelling was about. That was exactly why she had put them on. She knew her mom would enter her room at any minute, and she could pretend that she hadn't heard any of the previous yelling. She looked at her student wondering if she could ever get through. "You need to learn to think for yourself," she wanted to tell him. "Your friends are holding you back and bringing you down." But she didn't because she knew his friends were all that he had and even if that meant a life of misery, he would never give them up. She looked at her little girl who was about to become a teen. She tried to think back to when the girl had been younger but failed to pinpoint the exact moment when she had become a little too big to pick up and carry. It hit her all at once. She was no longer a little girl and she stood there speechless with fear, sadness, and pride all running through her at the same time. Do you think you're living an ordinary life? You are so mistaken it's difficult to even explain. The mere fact that you exist makes you extraordinary. The odds of you existing are less than winning the lottery, but here you are. Are you going to let this extraordinary opportunity pass? The box sat on the desk next to the computer. It had arrived earlier in the day and business had interrupted her opening it earlier. She didn't who had sent it and briefly wondered who it might have been. As she began to unwrap it, she had no idea that opening it would completely change her life. He wondered if he should disclose the truth to his friends. It would be a risky move. Yes, the truth would make things a lot easier if they all stayed on the same page, but the truth might fracture the group leaving everything in even more of a mess than it was not telling the truth. It was time to decide which way to go. They say you only come to peace with yourself when you know yourself better than those around you. Derick knew nothing about this. He thought he had found peace but this was an illusion as he was about to find out with an unexpected occurrence that he actually knew nothing about himself. 0.00