Tom lived by himself in his old and cranky apartment. One morning when he woke up, he had hiccups! When he tried having his breakfast, he felt his coffee would spill all over! Poor Tom!

Anyway, he had a job interview that afternoon and had a family dinner that day. After breakfast, Tom decided to buy some groceries so he went out to the shops. There people tried to help him stop his hiccups by scaring him or providing him with water, but nothing worked.

In fact, he felt he was about to blow up with the amount of water he had drunk!

Tom finally returned and tried to relax a bit before getting ready for his interview, hoping that his hiccups would stop. But he got ready and left for his interview while still having hiccups. It was very embarrassing for him when he was waiting for his turn at the reception area of the company he was giving the interview for, as his hiccups were very noisy.

When Tom’s name was called, he went in. The company’s president was taking his interview and when Tom started to tell answer the questions, his hiccups intervened! Embarrassed, he left the office and went home. He tried to take a nap before the family dinner, but his hiccups kept disturbing him.

That evening, when Tom arrived in his aunt’s house, nearly everyone was already there. The party went well and luckily nobody said anything about his hiccups because they were his family. But when Tom left, his cousins laughed about how he talked with everyone with hiccups.

Tom was very tired of his hiccups and on the way home he came across an old man selling herbs. Tom decided to give one more try to stop his hiccups and asked the old man if there was any remedy for it. The man gave him a small packet with a powder in it and told him to boil it and drink it like hot tea.

Excited, Tom went home and did as he was told. He drank the hot drink and went to bed. Soon he was sleep and when he woke up the next morning, his hiccups were gone! Tom went running to that old man and thanked him. He then asked what he had given him to drink that cured his hiccups.

“Young man, I did nothing. All I gave you was a simple tea mixture but you drank it thinking that it was a medicine that will cure you. It was simply your mind that cured your hiccups, thinking that you had now had a medicine that will cure you. It’s all in the mind, my boy!”

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 13th, 2021