Chapter 3

• Zinnia Point of View
• 'Hello Mr. Monk, Zinnia here again.
• I've been waiting for you reply from 25 hours 48 minutes and 2 seconds patiently. My friend did say that you would take a week's time to reply but here I am with another harmless habit of mine.
• I'm not patient. I don't know why but I expect things to happen soon or else I get anxious. And that is how I'm feeling now. While waiting for your reply, I checked my phone for over 400 times over past 25 hours and I was anxious if the message reached you safely or not.
• So, If you or your assistant whoever is looking over the social media accounts got my message, Please reply me quickly.
• Thank you so much for listening to me.
• Fickle and Anxious Zinnia.'
• 'Hello Respected Mr. Monk, It's been four days and still didn't get any reply from you yet. I know I'm pestering you with my silly problems when you have bunches of people you need to fix. But, like I said I am not a patient person and my hands are itching to start some new interesting works to do but I'm controlling myself from signing any new contract so I can first know your views about my habits.
• I just need a simple one sentence reply if I am eligible for this counseling or not. I know I'm disturbing you a lot and I'm so sorry. It's not like I am desperate about counseling with you but I just don't like when someone puts me on hold.
• Hoping to receive a quick 'yes' or 'no' from you and trust me I wouldn't feel bad at all if I'm not eligible.
• Thank you for your reading time.
• Anxious and helpless Zinnia.'
• It's been a day that I sent my last message to the monk and I didn't get any reply yet. I wonder if he is okay or not. I wish he gets well soon if he is not alright.
• So in these five days I watched many videos of speeches given by different monks around the world and also many counseling stages by the monks and to say they are very patient and give a very good piece of advice is an understatement.
• There is this one time when a girl told her story of how one of her colleagues at her office always being rude to her for no good reason and keeps humiliating her.
• I felt bad for her and expected the monk to either brush away it as some silly problem or ask her to beat her to pulp when no one was around but the monk's reply really got to me.
• 'There is no reason for you to feel sad about that, child. She was being jealous of you and you just need to pity her for choosing such way to express her jealousy. From next time, whenever she express her jealousy to you violently just tell her that you pity her and she will let you be after few times of hearing that from you.'
• Isn't that a good advice? So I started using it on my best friend and cousin from then on. Whenever they mock me about my habits, I tell I pity them because they are jealous of my abilities to multi task.
• And from then on I kind of grew fond of monks. They are amazing and so patient unlike me. They are very good listeners and they listen to everyone's issues with so much tolerance that I think I cannot be that tolerant even if I save this world from calamities.
• Oh, I'm just too lazy to save the whole world.
• "Albina!" I called out exasperated at my cousin when I saw her walking into the house.
• "What?" She sighed and drank a bottle full of chilled water and heaved a little.
• "This is the first time I am seeing you in three days. Where were you? Are you doing drugs? Why are your eyes as bright as traffic signal red light?" I asked in one breath pulling the second water bottle from her hand and took a gulp from it.
• She looked like she didn't have a decent sleep from days and this is not new to her or us. She is like this.
• "I went to meet God." And I spewed the water from my mouth in shock.
• "You what?" I almost yelled looking dead serious at her.
• She went to meet God? Is she crazy? She's sounding like God is a name of a new neighbor here.
• "You mean you went to temple or a church to do services?" I asked trying to get a logical understanding from her senseless statement.
• How would one go and meet God and come back again?
• As far as I know you can only meet God once in a lifetime and that too when that lifetime is up.
• "Whatever. I'm so tired, Mae. I'll just go have some sleep." Her red zombie eyes are already drooping down so I just nodded and told her that I would prepare some sandwiches for her to eat.
• God knows how he is bearing her love and worship. I think he is frightened enough to even let her die because that would be disadvantageous to him. After all he would risk his own sanity by killing Albina and knowing her soul.
• I made few sandwiches for myself and Albina and it took me whole one hour to wake her partially dead body up and feed her. Later that day I searched or few children stories to tell the class and just then my phone blinked with a new message.
• I was too lazy to see the message as I was thinking that it must be some cellular company message to download certain caller tunes or recharge the number with some plan. But I suddenly thought that it can be a reply from the Monk group too.
• What if it is not from the Monk, then I would be disappointed again and I will be restless again. No I wouldn't check the message it must be some mass cellular message.
• But what if it is not?
• What if it is really from the Monk?
• I sighed deeply and slowly inched my hand towards my phone. I closed my eyes and tried to open my open peeking a little from my half closed eyes.
• It was a notification from my social account. I smiled gleefully and clapped my hands clutching my phone in my hands tightly.
• Please be it from the Monk
• Please be it from the Monk
• I chanted and opened the notification and good God I am skipping, hopping and dancing crazily on my bed.
• I got the reply!
• Finally, after five days of restlessness I got the reply from the Monk!
• Yay!
• I settled myself on the bed and opened the message to read it with my heart beating with hope.
• 'Listen here girl; you must have misunderstood us for someone else. So I expect you to stop asking advices from me.'
• Misunderstood for someone else?
• But I think I texted the right person then why is the Monk is telling me that I misunderstood?
• 'Hello Mr. Monk, I know I approached the right person. Are you telling me that I misunderstood because I spammed you with the messages the whole week or is it because my problems are not worth your time and expertise?
• If so then I'm really sorry that I showed how impatient I was. Can you, a respected Monk, forgive this measly human and give your advices.
• Please.'
• I replied and made a note of making the message as polite and respectful as possible.
• I am a little irritated that after waiting for many days for a simple reply all I get is an indirect 'No'. I'm disappointed but I know the Monk must have many people to attend to not just me.
• Soon enough in a couple minutes I got the reply from the Monk.
• 'You are not going to leave me until I give you those advices you need, wont you?' He replied and I smiled a bit and how great a Monk can be that he can feel the desperation and determination of people from mere messages.
• 'Yes. I am really in need of you guidance according to my friend. So please let me be one of your disciple.' I answered adding a smiley in it. Hope the Monk doesn't feel that I am crossing my line for sending a simple smiley.
• I waited for the reply with a baited breath. What will he advice me?
• What will he ask me to know about my condition? According to the videos I watched, Monks usually asks few questions about the usual routine activities before analyzing them and give suggestions.
• But there is no incident in my life that leads me to this impulsive and restless habit. My mother used to say that I was born with it. So should I tell the Monk the same think if he asks about my routines?
• My hands vibrated as the phone blinked in a new notification.
• 'Alright then, let's meet up and see if you still want counseling from me.'
• The Monk's reply felt vague and mysterious. Does he think I cannot be treated online that he is calling me to meet?
• Maybe what Tuyen said is true about me having many problems.
• ~*~*~*~*~