The Last Page

Aabha found the yellowing leaflet that contained the predictions for her life, as foreseen by a learned astrologer soon after her birth, tucked deep under a pile of saris in her late mother’s closet -the predictions that her mother strongly believed in, for the sheer accuracy in the series of events that followed in Aabha’s life…her childhood accidents, the occupation of a teacher that she went on to choose after her education, her marriage to a dentist, her mothering two lovely daughters and also the exact age at which she was widowed….everything just fell in sequence exactly as he had prophesied.Aabha was never a staunch believer in the play of stars and the predictions based on a few calculations, but the details mentioned in the leaflet played through her life precisely as though the final draft of a film was being executed which made it difficult for her to not believe it.

Her mother had narrated to her, every small detail mentioned in the forecast…except the part which augured her death, which she refused to share with Aabha owing to her protective maternal instincts that prevented her from talking about her daughter’s death.

Now that her mother was no more, Aabha was curious about her own death and hence she flipped through the pages of the leaflet to reach the last page that mentioned the exact date and time of her death. Realization struck in the form of a piercing pain shooting through her chest, and in the next few seconds, the last prediction about her life came true.

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