An Adventurous Journey

Again I selected a story kind of speech for the 6th project in toastmasters - Vocal variation. Here is my so called creative story.:)

Taking my vehicle to kathirgamam/Kataragama was one of my dreams. Recently I bought a car by the way. :)

 

Dear Toastmaster and friends, Hope you would like thriller stories. This is about a thrilling experience I had couple of months ago.

I decided to drive to Kathirgamam and left from Colombo on a Saturday afternoon. Yeah… I wanted to take the challenge of travelling alone to kathirgamam. My plan was to stay there Saturday night and come back on Sunday evening. Everything went well till I pass Hambantota. On my way from Hambantota to Kathirgamam route, some where I missed the route. In the middle I felt like I’m going in a wrong route and took a turn assuming that should be the right way which made the situation worse. Ended up in a narrow road which seemingly leads to a forest area. I have already visited Kathirgamam couple of times and I can’t recall any narrow road that I found on the way. Definitely I have gone wrong somewhere. The terrible fact was I could not find any human face. My wrist watched showed 6.30 pm. I was feeling scared to death when I think of marooned in a forest area. I decided to go back to Hambantota town at least. I was going to take a reverse in my car and there comes my fate to play an awesome scene. My car stopped suddenly and I might have tried around 100 times to start it again. No way. I don’t know much about the inner functionalities or mechanical system of a car. Within a few seconds I was soaked by sweating as If I just had a bath. Thought to call some body and ask for any help at least to come out of the haunting emotions. Dialed the number, kept the phone on my ears only to realize that no signal in that area. Holy crap!

I could not do much. My brain was stuck. The whole body started shivering. I was feeling a bit of dizziness too. Went and sat inside the car for a while. I tried a convince myself that being panicked will help for nothing and succeeded quite well on it. Walk back is not a wise decision because I might have to face wild animals and I dropped that idea. Decided to lock myself inside the car till someone comes on my way. Kept one of the windows open to get some fresh air. I can hear the sounds of little birds and a river’s sound.Cuckoo was singing somewhere nearby.(Tried to sing or make sound like cuckoo and failed miserably :)) Even in that nerve racking situation the artistic person inside me wanted to wander around there and enjoy the beauty of the nature. “No. You are not allowed to go. Why do not you understand the situation?! This is not time for entertainment” My brain instructed. She calmed down and stayed inside. 

This could have continued for a couple of minutes until I was disturbed by the trumpet of an elephant. Oh… The danger is on the way. Again I was overwhelmed by fear. The very next moment closed the door fully and managed to fold myself and lie down on the floor of my small car and closed the eyes tightly. Pin drop silence was there for a while and suddenly I felt like someone touched my shoulder. I already have closed all the doors. It must be the wild elephant that sensed the presence of human and broke the door. I was shocked and I was at loss of words. I could not even scream. That is the end I thought.But one weird thing happened. I heard some human voice. How come?? Sharpened my ears and listened to the following words carefully. “How many times should I call you to wake you up??!” What… I re-played the recording in my mind. “How many times should I call you to wake you up??!” Oh… The familiar regular praise that I get from my mother every morning. Mother?! How come she is here??! Opened the eyes and where am I? I’m on my bed and wall clock showed 3.30 am. Mother is preparing the meal and getting ready to go somewhere.oh…now I remember that we planned to leave to Kathirgamam early morning 4.30 and return in the night because we did not want to stay there overnight. All what I have seen is just a trailer. Yes it was a dream. Even though the journey in the dream was adventurous the first travel in my car to Kathirgamam was smooth and pleasant. Thank you. !