The difficult decision

She was sweating profusely. She didn’t know what to do.
Decisions can sometimes be so hard to make, she thought. She then brushed aside the thought and started thinking again. She must not waste any more time.
She reached out for the box of tissues on her table and wiped her face. And before she knew it, she had already wasted precious minutes.

In her anxiety, her fingers unconsciously went near her mouth. Slowly, and with ferocity she did not even realize, she was biting her nails, in a maniacal fashion. It was like she was giving vent to all her anxiety by biting off those beautifully polished nails. She suddenly looked at them, just as she realized that she was biting nails.
“God!” she thought. The beautiful baby pink nail enamel had now lost its glory. She thought of Vidya, who would keep chiding her for biting nails. And as she thought of Vidya, she thought she felt the taste of nail polish in her mouth.

“Ugggghhhhh!!!” she exclaimed.
She reached for that bottle of water nearby and gulped the water furiously, all the while thinking what to do.
Time was moving fast.
She had to act fast, too.

She hated such kind of working. Working under pressure. They never brought out the best from her, she always felt. Her best was always when she did things just by chance – her award winning short story, for instance; it was just written one night when she couldn’t sleep. This was one reason why she could never really do her school assignments well – the teachers gave deadlines. Deadlines always freaked her out. This, is very, very bad, she thought; whatever she would ultimately have in life would have deadlines; deadline to finish university education (though not exact, there was always this deadline of “Finish by 4 years.” ). Deadlines to find a job; or to get married. Deadlines to finish projects at work. Deadlines ruled life.
Deadlines!! She got highly irritated at this thought.

She suddenly shook her mind off all this thought.
Time was moving fast, again, and she still hadn’t made her decision.

God, why such a trap, she thought. Why now, why me! Why not someone else? Have you no consideration, she thought, as she wiped her face and fanned herself with the other hand, as though this fanning would give her any amount of relief.

She stared helplessly.
She looked at the time. It was ticking fast.
And she still didn’t know what to do.
It was well over five minutes. She had to do something fast.

She gingerly touched it and pressed it.
“Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” she screamed.
She screamed her heart out. A silent tear somehow found its way out and left a trail on her right cheek. And before she knew it, another one slowly trickled down the other cheek.
This isn’t fair, this is just not fair, she thought.

All because of the pressure. All because of that ticking clock which couldn’t make me think.
She stared at the screen.
At the minesweeper screen where she had clicked on the wrong box and lost the game with the one mine left, after 523 seconds of hard thinking.