That day, I woke up early in the morning, aching all over. I could not sleep the night before because my neighbour’s dog was barking all night and little droplets of water were continuously dripping from the basin in the washroom. It would just not turn off.

When I kept my feet on the ground, all of a sudden my legs pained as if I had been running throughout the night. My tummy was also growling. It was necessary, however, to deliver pizzas that day because it was the last day of June and I had to collect my salary. When I stretched my hands to open the curtains, I could see that a thunderstorm about to arrive anytime.

I mustered up courage and stood up, ignoring the pain. I glanced at the clock only to have a sudden chill run down my spine on seeing the time. I had only thirty minutes left to get dressed and reach the pizza shop where I work.

The clock was ticking fast. I panicked as I thought my manager would be angry and dreaded that all my hard work, all through this month, would go down the drain. Wearing my wool coat, I grabbed my motorbike’s keys and some cookies for breakfast.

I hurried towards my motorbike and tried starting the engine, and found that I was out of fuel. I started walking towards the nearest fuel station while dragging the bike along me. In the middle of the way, a thought hit me, ‘Am I taking my wallet with me?’ and searched frantically for the wallet in the pocket of my coat.

It dawned upon me, unfortunately, that in a hurry I had forgotten my wallet at my home. So I had to turn back and go home. I grabbed the wallet and started my journey towards the patrol station again.

I was drenched in sweat, as I knew I was going to be very late that day. The clouds were roaring, I knew it would start to rain any minute.

With only ten minutes remaining, I arrived at the fuel station where I got my bike refuelled. I sat on the bike and raced as fast as I could to the pizza shop. The main road was jammed with traffic, I was having a very bad headache because I hadn’t slept well at night, and after that all this nuisance was just torturing me.

When I arrived at the pizza shop, I was relieved to see that I had managed to arrive on time. I started my work without wasting a single minute. At the end of the day, when I had delivered all the pizzas, I got the opportunity to tell the manager of the day’s ordeal.

He was really surprised to know how I managed all this and was proud of me. Not only was I given my salary that day, but as a reward for the hard work I had been putting in, I was promoted as assistant manager.

That day, my belief in the saying ‘Hard work always pays,’ got even stronger.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 3rd, 2018